Meet Dan Becker | Lead Design Engineer and CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dan Becker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dan, looking back, what do you think was the most difficult decision you’ve had to make?
The most difficult decision I ever had to make as a young entrepreneur was to hire my very first employee. Being a control freak makes letting go of responsibilities very hard! Up until then, I wore all hats and made sure everything was ‘perfect’. However, that could only last so long, as the company grew and sales started to take over, I had no choice but to start hiring help. I needed to let go of perfectionism, and understand that sometimes that last 5-10% of the work I put in takes 90% of my time, which leads to a net loss of productivity. Having a solid workforce is the only way to scale up. At the time, I was young and hadn’t matured as a business owner so the thought of having to pay someone every 2 weeks was terrifying. Today, I am glad to have a solid team, they keep the engine running and then some! Without a good workforce, there is no innovation, no progress, no growth. Taking that first step in creating the workforce is hardest. I was riddled with self doubt and ‘what if’s’, this is usually what keeps any small home business from scaling up. I knew what I had to do, I had to let go and just trust myself and my intellect that this is the way. I can’t do it alone.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Velossa Tech is a highly niche business that focuses on a particular product line in the aftermarket automotive industry. In the USA, modifying cars for performance is a big deal. The aftermarket automotive industry as of 2021 is worth 400 billion USD. Most people think of cars as just getting from A to B safe and efficiently. However there are a crazy group of people out there who take car modifying to insane levels. This is our market and our bread and butter. Within the aftermarket car market, there are parts that range from all sorts of engine, computer re-tuning, aesthetic mods for the body, aerodynamic enhancements for downforce or reduced drag, wheels and tires, suspension and the list goes on forever. Our product is called the “BIG MOUTH” ram air intake. The name is pretty self explanatory, the device is called a ram air intake because it literally ‘rams’ air into the engine as the car picks up speed. It is a performance mod with a twist, though. What makes this product so revolutionary is that we combined aesthetic beauty with performance. Most car parts are one or the other, functionally awesome and kind of ugly or can’t be seen or beautiful but do-nothing. There are some parts that can do both, but they are very expensive. Our product does both, and is not expensive at all and it is made right here in the USA. The product sits behind the front grille of the car and is easily visible and recognizable as a Velossa Tech product. We have multiple patents and trademarks on the product and style and are obtaining even more as we develop it further.

As a side note. there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for entrepreneurial success. Every situation is a little bit different, every business although functions on the same fundamental principal, will have its own nuances. You need to pay attention to those nuances to succeed, but don’t dwell on them! Learn from mistakes, and don’t allow emotions to dictate your decision making. Those are the most important things that I learned. Also, know when to be persistent and know when to let go and course correct. Knowing when and how to do this comes with time and experience. Having a good balance and the ability to take a few steps back and look at things from a birds eye view is a requirement. One cannot succeed by focusing on the low level details all the time, you will lose sight of the overall goal, and time will pass and you would end up going down the wrong path. Sometimes bouncing ideas off of people you trust is a good way to get this birds eye view if you have a hard time figuring out exactly what you want. Don’t be discouraged if you need to course correct, if you originally had a plan and it isn’t going the way you wanted, that is ok, shift direction and try a new course. No one is keeping score.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Luckily South Florida has a lot of great places to eat. I was born and raised in Hollywood, FL so a good starter spot would be Hollywood beach (if they don’t have access to nice beaches from their home town). I am also a huge fan of the Wynwood scene, the art and night life is a great experience for someone who has never been there. One of my all time favorite places to go is Key West. That is a must visit for at least 2 or 3 days. Other fun places that come to mind would be Las Olas strip or South Beach if you really want the Miami experience.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I could probably come up with a long list of inspirations but I really intend to dedicate this article to a few people that popped into my head. I would like to dedicate this one to Velossa Tech staff, they are at the top of the list when it comes to recognition deserved. My company as of now has 5 on-site employees and 2 off-site. Two of my on-site employees just celebrated their 5 year anniversary and a 3rd is coming up. For a company that is only 7 years old, this is a huge deal. The dedication and trust that I have earned from my staff is what makes this growth a team effort and, possible at all. In no particular order, I will start with Tamir Dagan who is Velossa Techs’ Operations Manager. Tamir himself has not just grown over the years, but he has allowed me to grow as a business owner, by him taking on responsibilities and earning my trust, this allowed me time to think, and plan for the future. Tamir is dedicated to his job, and runs the show when I am not around. He started out making sandwiches at a Subway shop near the office, I saw something in him that was important to me, he had the right etiquette and work ethic and at the time I needed someone to fulfill the managerial role. He was young and lacked experience in management but none of that even mattered to me. I didn’t care to see a resume and didn’t really need to interview him a whole lot, I had been buying Subway sandwiches from him for nearly a year. I knew he’d be the right person to train. It was a learning experience for me too, I never trained a manager before. I was never a manager myself, let alone owner of a growing business! I just jumped right in, I made an offer to him and the rest was history. Another one of the OG’s of Velossa Tech is Janesler Gonzalez. Janesler has unstoppable self discipline and no-questions-asked work ethic. I first hired him as an unpaid intern while he was still an undergrad at FIU Mechanical Engineering. Since I was a graduate of FIU Mechanical Engineering, I had contacts with the Professors at the University. I needed help in the technical department, so one email later and Dr. T from the ME department emailed me Janeslers resume. At that time, Janesler and I worked on a technical paper together for college credits, that had to do with calculating the maximum accelerations attainable by 3D Printer X and Y axes. This was a quick and fun undergrad paper and Janesler soon graduated and became a full time employee with Velossa Tech. Since then, he has learned good practices in mechanical engineering design, manufacturing, technical writing, two types of 3D scanning and advanced physics of 3D printing. Janesler now designs automotive products for us, maintains our working fleet of 3D printers and documents and runs experiments for new technologies specific to Velossa Tech. One more shoutout goes to Cesar Escobar. Cesar is one of those guys that is literally the foundation of Velossa Tech. Cesar is our production and QC manager. He hand assembles our products, trains new production associates and is dead reliable. He is so good at what he does, I rarely have to talk to him. Cesar started out working for that same Subway. (Must be something in those sandwiches).
At the time, we needed a reliable production and assembly manager, luckily Tamir made the suggestion to hire Cesar and the rest was history. Without Cesar, there would be no Velossa Tech.

Last mention goes to David Jacobs, our offsite web developer and marketing consultant. It is very rare to find someone who is an artist of their craft, David is one of those people. He understands our industry and turns marketing into an art form, this is paramount for modern businesses since everything is social media based and algorithms change all the time. I met David at SEMA 2016 out in Las Vegas. He had already heard of Velossa Tech back then (which goes to show how integrated he is in our industry, since Velossa Tech was tiny in 2016!). We hit it off and David became the go-to with any marketing or e-commerce questions.

Website: www.velossatechdesign.com

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Image Credits
Jennie Graff