Branford Business Owner Details How His Business Has Evolved and Grown

Submitted by Joshua Lockwood, owner of the Branford based Excelerate Performance. He shares his journey and how his business has evolved in Branford.

Blood, sweat and tears. That is what they say you have to put in to have a successful business. It’s true. But you also need to have some of the green stuff with your hard work. Excelerate Performance located at 12 Sycamore Way Unit 1 is the culmination and honestly still the progression of all the above.

Hard work and an intense commitment to the company have allowed it to thrive and grow at rapid rates, but it has required extensive amounts of time and a strong belief in reinvestment of funds back into the business. But those funds were sparse when Excelerate Performance began. So how did it all begin?

Back in the late 90’s, my hobby was cars, and more specifically modifying cars. They say it’s in my blood as my father loved fast cars. But it was part nurture and nature as the automotive performance scene was expanding rapidly back then.

And I caught the bug. Back in Guilford, CT at my high school I began by modifying my first car, then my second and so on. My first real modified vehicle started out with just some basic mods, like an intake, exhaust, wheels, etc. and eventually transformed into a fully built motor with a custom turbo setup making 300% more power than it made from the factory.

Once the button was switched it was game over. I started a small business on the side selling parts to family and friends, learning more and more about the aftermarket automotive industry.

Then, I decided to switch out of my English Major at Trinity College and convert to my true love, Business Management. I transferred over to Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT, changed my major to Business Management and started increasing my knowledge and experience in the business arena.

In my final semester at QU, I enrolled in an entrepreneurship class with Dr. J focused on building a Business Plan for a new company. It was the perfect opportunity for my passion and part-time gig, Excelerate Performance.

After developing a robust business plan, completing my research on the market, determining costs and expenses, and completing it all with an end of semester presentation, the deck was set. I had won the business plan competition and reaped the prize of $6,000.

After saving up $5,000 personally, taking the $4,000 from my graduation party, and utilizing the $6,000 prize money, Excelerate Performance came to life as a brick and mortar store.

In 2003, Excelerate Performance opened up in Branford, CT in a 1,500 sq ft unit. I had a 500 sq ft showroom and office and a 1,000 sq ft warehouse and shop space. I started immediately to get to work on new distribution channels, trying to open up accounts even though there was “sufficient distribution” in the area. It took some time but we started building a rapport with several warehouses. And the local parts sales started to come to life.

We quickly realized though we needed to tap into the online sales so we started looking at different online forums. We quickly built up a strong presences on a couple Japanese forums and started developing a reputation for quality, competitive pricing and great response times.

We also realized too that we needed to start installing the parts we were selling. So I started wrenching. It’s a difficult task to be a business owner, which carries innumerable tasks and roles, and then also be the mechanic, a role I assumed based on need. And I had to learn how to do it by watching others and putting my nose into the dirt, literally (ok I guess grease, not dirt).

Over the first few years our sales grew by 50-100% each year. And with the increased sales came more and more demands on my time and skillset. And I started to hit the proverbial entrepreneurial roadblock: learning to delegate.

So I hired the one task I knew someone could do better than me: a mechanic. Jamie, a resident of Branford, CT and previous shop owner, was my first employee and still remains with me to this day. He is a great employee who works hard and has an unmatched mechanical skill set.

And the shop continued to grow. By this time we were in our second location on West Main St in Branford, CT. It was high traffic but we were running out of space with three employees and myself. So we moved to our current location at 12 Sycamore Way in Branford, CT. This time I bought the building.

I prepared for future expansion and after just 3 years at this location, we’ve already expanded from 5,000 sq ft to 11,000 sq ft. Insides these walls we have showrooms, waiting rooms, offices, service areas, fabrication areas, alignment areas, inventory storage, warehouse space, and more.

We now provide services on all levels: online and local parts, wholesale distribution, repair and service work, performance and software upgrades, and now even a dyno service.
But beyond the walls and windows, there are now ten people working here at Excelerate Performance.

I am proud of Team Excelerate. My team is a group of passionate, diligent automotive enthusiasts that travel from all corners of Connecticut to help build this company to what it is: a multi-million dollar company that excels at surpassing others.

The website is www.excelerateperformance.com