Small Business Solutions - Blake Fuller

Alex Fees: I'm Alex Fees on Small Business Television. We're coming to you from SEMA 2008. That's Specialty Equipment Market Association, and joining me here now is Blake Fuller. Good to meet you. Blake is the owner of Braille Battery. Blake Fuller: That's correct. Alex Fees: Now Blake, let's talk, about this name, first of all, Braille Battery. You told me before we got on camera, it's a French derivate. Blake Fuller: Well, it comes from the name of Braille who was the person that invented the dots. Alex Fees: Oh, okay. Blake Fuller: The whole reason we call it that is because we actually manufacture batteries that are lightweight and high in performance. Of course, we've got full size ones now too. But when you put a battery in the car, you don't see it, but you feel it when it cranks the car. So that's where the name comes from. Alex Fees: Oh, I see. Blake Fuller: Braille is a formal communication through touch. So our batteries, you feel them when they start the car. And it's kind of a catchy name, because a lot of times people think blind and cars driving, that doesn't make a lot of sense. So it's something that helps peoples remember it and it's really done well for us. We've been in business now for five years manufacturing batteries. Alex Fees: Yeah. That's a good little mental exercise there I must say, regarding the whole Braille thing, how you feel the battery. You guys were in Sarasota, Florida. Blake Fuller: Yeah, we're based at Sarasota, Florida, which is on the west coast to south of Tampa. Alex Fees: What did you do before five years ago? Blake Fuller: Okay. Well, I've been racing cars for ten years, which is what got me into the automotive industry. I started off racing at the Pike's Peak, Hill Climb, ten years ago where I earned Rookie of the Year. Alex Fees: What kind of racing is that? Blake Fuller: It's actually what would be considered, rallying. It's a hill climb that you start at 9000 feet altitude, you go to 14,000 feet up a mountain in Colorado. It's actually America's oldest automotive race. It starts every single year on July 4th and I started that back in 1999. That's what got me thinking about lightweight products, because we have to climb a hill. Alex Fees: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So you'd be very efficient in what you had on board the vehicle. Blake Fuller: Exactly. With racing, you have to have a sealed battery, so it doesn't spill acid everywhere. So our batteries are sealed and that's what started all. Of course, I was in the mountain bike racing. I had a company that actually helped to assemble bicycles for department stores and from that I got more into auto racing. I got into doing some Grand-Am Racing. Now I actually am actively participating in what's called the Formula Drift Series. We're involved with Nissan Motorsports. We drive a Nissan 350Z, which leads us to kind of why we're here today with Nissan. I've got the world's first Nissan Hybrid Race Car, and it's North America's first hybrid race car. We've built a car for Time Attack, which is circuit racing out of a hybrid and, of course, it ties in with batteries because if you manufacture batteries, it's a perfect proportion for the car. Alex Fees: I am having trouble keeping up here. Blake Fuller: It's alright. Alex Fees: -- got a little auto racing, got a little hybrid car, got a little bit of racing. Man, what do you do in your spare time? Blake Fuller: Well, I recently just had a son that's now nine months old. Alex Fees: Oh, really? Blake Fuller: So married with a son, it's like -- I think the Starbucks, it's right behind us. If they want to step up as a sponsor, that will be wonderful, I can just power myself a little bit more. Alex Fees: Well, congratulations on fatherhood! Blake Fuller: Yes. Thank you! Alex Fees: Tell me about SEMA 2008. Have you been a part of this organization, a part of this convention before? Blake Fuller: Yeah, actually our business, while it's changed its corporate title or entity, I've been a SEMA member since 2004 and I've gotten to see a lot of different aspects of the SEMA Show over the years, first as a racer, walking around, proposals in hand, hoping to get some sponsorship dollars, some product support, to take the team to the next level each time. Then I've gotten the opportunity sometimes to work with OEs and represent them for facilitating to be able to explore new products for new people. Then on the manufacturing side, now that we're here working with OEs like Nissan to premier race cars that really are the future of racing and hopefully the future of the industry. It's really neat to get those different perspectives. Alex Fees: Now Blake, is there an interface between your batteries and the Nissan hybrid car? Blake Fuller: Yeah, it actually is. What we've done is we've not only replaced the Original Equipment starting battery, because it uses a 12 volt system, but it also uses a 240 volt pack. The 12 volt battery, which only weighs around 40 pounds was replaced with a little 6.6 pound battery that's made out of carbon fiber. Alex Fees: Wow! Blake Fuller: It's really neat that our company manufactures. Then the racing pack that replaces the OE pack is actually designed to give it more run-time, a little bit more voltage as well. We worked with a lot of industry leaders like Sparco, and Vortech and Yokohama, Stillen; all these different companies have come together to build this forward-thinking green car. We've got better aerodynamics -- Alex Fees: No, we're going to have green technology though, you list or you resume that out. Blake Fuller: Oh, yeah! Because with batteries it makes sense what the technology you have, the way that we're thinking to move into that hybrid market, to move into the electric vehicle market. It's really exciting and our batteries are used in everything from NASCAR. We've got the top 30% of the teams that they use our product in NASCAR now. We're kind of like this underground company that supplies to all the top people and now our battery actually is the number one lightweight selling battery in Jack's catalog. So we've really made some good forward progress in the last three years. Alex Fees: Well, Blake, where can SBTV.com viewers go to get more information about -- about what, I don't know where to begin about the battery, first of all, I guess, ha! Blake Fuller: That's just so nice about the web. It's just like our conversation that starts off at one place and you go to 30 places, but the place to start is Braille Battery, and you spelled it before, BrailleBattery.com. Alex Fees: Okay, BrailleBattery.com. Blake Fuller: Yeah, once you're there, you can find out about our products. There is events and news. We've even got live updates, like for right now you can jump on and see live pictures, not exactly, but from yesterday of the race car and there is hundreds of cars here that have our batteries in it. So, what we're doing with our media team is walking around, taking photos of the different people, using our product, helping to promote those people, because those are the racers that are just like myself that, five years ago, we're walking around, looking for proposals. Alex Fees: Alright! Good deal. Blake Fuller, great, I appreciate it. Blake Fuller: Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Alex Fees: Again, he is Blake Fuller with, let's see, Braille Battery at BrailleBattery.com. I'm Alex Fees; you're watching Small Business Television from the SEMA 2008 in Las Vegas.