"Outside machine shops were making my parts, like other people were doing. But as time went on, I bought equipment to make everything in-house. I developed pegs, triple trees, turn signals, and made them in-house, and eventually everything went on in-house except chrome. I wanted to control the quality of my parts. We even have in-house silkscreen printing for T-shirts, and headlight testing, engineering, marketing, graphics, pretty much it all. I consider Headwinds a mom-and-pop company; my wife Julie handles all the finances, and engineering, sales, and marketing go on myself. I've even named two headlights after my kids."
We asked Joel why his headlights stand out, and he replied, "First one to do it. When people buy my product they know what they're getting before getting it-they're repeat customers. We're very consistent with what we do and make. We've been the choice of top builders for a while. We have good quality pieces."
When asked who has helped Joel the most along the way, he responded, "Perry has influenced me the most along the way, and even his wife Nancy has helped me. Perry told me things that helped before I started this business. He taught me things that I'm using now."
We had to ask the juicy questions, like what problems Headwinds has run into, and what's the future of this booming company? Joel remarked, "We were confronted with Chinese copies of my headlights. I also realized more than ever that more people are about price, not quality, and whether it's cheap enough to buy. Some people don't seem to care about the quality and having a long-lasting product. And the copies weren't great.
So I made a copy of the Chinese copy that copied me. I made something comparable to the Chinese headlight and sold it for the same price. I also think people are more inclined to buy an American-made product than 'Made in China.' Our line U.S. Headlights is made in America by the people at Headwinds, and is a quality headlight for the price conscious consumer. It doesn't have all the features that are normally found on a Headwinds product, like smooth, non-wavy surfaces with mirror finishes. But it does have features unlike the Chinese copy." The company's other lines include Tradewinds and Headwinds headlights.
Now, how the Headwinds name came about is pretty cool. Joel recalled, "There were cross-town rival bands at the time I was in high school in Pasadena. One was Mammoth and the other was Headwinds, which was out of my school. Well, Mammoth changed their name to Van Halen. When I was thinking of a name for the company, I thought about Headwinds and it fit. Headwinds is like the feeling of riding, and what it feels like when you're riding, going somewhere."
Joel did go somewhere with the start-up of Headwinds, and he lights the way for many riders.
SourcesHeadwinds(626) 359-8044headwinds.com