Have you ever been cut up so bad you wanted to rip the driver a new one? Apologies for the imagery, but all too often that’s exactly how we feel, especially if we drive “small” vehicles. It seems like the roads everywhere are now full of huge trucks that look big enough to pull a house, but seem to be driven by people who are less than qualified.
Of course, the truck drivers aren’t the only ones guilty of a little careless driving, but that was the catalyst for Matt Heller, founder, and CEO of Horn Blasters.
In 2002, after being cut up one too many times in his “small” truck, Matt had had enough. His factory-fitted horn just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t big enough or loud enough to get through the skulls of the people cutting him off.
As a solution, he decided to see if attaching a train horn to his vehicle would work. To his surprise, it did! And beyond that, Heller wasn’t the only person who wanted to have a beastly horn to tell road users exactly what they think of their driving.
“[I started selling] out the back of my truck, or room, or friend’s room. Wherever there was space. Then I created HornBlasters.com, got better at making the product, learned how a business works, and found the most amazing fans in the world,” Matt said.
Matt had found an untapped market. Of course, custom horns have been around for years, but could mostly be found in the “novelty” category. None had the loudness that the Horn Blasters horns offer. As Matt told us, “[We] design, manufacture, and build the most complete and loudest air horn kits for your vehicle in the world. After creating this industry 18 years ago, we are still the industry leader and ship our product all around the world.”
Of course, with so much success, Horn Blasters has now got competitors that offer cheap knock-offs. While Horn Blasters offers the original, US-made air horns they’ve become known for, there are foreign-made knock-offs that also have half the quality.
This hasn’t been the only hurdle Matt has faced while building Horn Blasters into the multi-million dollar business it is today. They face hate from those who don’t like being surprised by loud air horns, and in the early days, it was very difficult for Matt to find the right team to surround himself with.
“After being burned more than a few times, my default move was to trust no one. The problem with that was, now I had this growing business, if I couldn’t trust people, I couldn’t grow. Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with a few great men in my life that have a love for this train horn thing we’re doing, and it’s made all the difference.”
Fortunately, these great men and Horn Blasters’ incredible fans have made it easy for Matt to grow his company, despite the backlash they often face. “Some people hate us and we’re aware of that,” Matt said on the subject. “Horn Blasters isn’t for everyone. [But] our fans drastically outweigh the haters.”
Earlier this summer, Horn Blasters moved to new premises 25 miles south of their last place, to Tampa. The warehouse officially opened on June 1, and Matt is excited to see the business grow now it has the space to do so. Customers now have the benefit of contactless pickup from the warehouse.
“We’re so thrilled to move into a bigger warehouse and increasing our presence to better serve our customers. Moving to Tampa just made sense,” Heller said. It’s even more exciting for residents of the Tampa area, because the move has created new jobs in the area.
While Horn Blasters may not be for everyone, their growth seems to be like the runaway train their horns are based on. If you’d like to find out more about their air horn kits and the other products they now supply, see HornBlasters.com.