Who Is the Founder Of BuyBrakes.com? An Interview With John Butler

Did you know that BuyBrakes.com has been around for more than 20 years? When we celebrated our 20th anniversary in 2019, we marveled over how much our little company has grown over the years.

When our founder John Butler launched this website in the infancy of e-commerce back in 1999, he had no idea that his creation would turn into an online hub for performance brakes and accessories. Today, we carry quality performance brakes for nearly 80 car brands, including Chrysler, Ferrari, Subaru, and Tesla.

Let’s take a few minutes to get to know the man who started it all: John Butler. We sat down with him and asked him some questions about starting and growing BuyBrakes.com.

Q: Why did you decide to start BuyBrakes.com in 1999?

John Butler: In the late 90s, I decided to venture forth on my own path. Since I had extensive professional experience marketing brakes, I made the decision to specialize and focus on brakes. During that time, e-commerce platforms were in their infancy, but I decided to take a leap and launch BuyBrakes.com.

Q: Can you please elaborate more about your professional experience marketing brakes?

John Butler: In the early 90s, I was the marketing director of a high performance tuning company. During that time, the company was granted exclusive importation rights of Brembo high-performance brake components. It was that initial Brembo relationship that allowed the company to create the very first Brembo Big Brake Kits engineered and marketed in the USA. That was essentially the genesis of substantial “real” big brake kits in the U.S.

My experience marketing Brembo brakes and other high-performance parts gave me access to a lot of the “behind the scenes” stuff in the industry. I saw how complicated it could be to order brake components. When I launched BuyBrakes.com, my mission was to “simplify the complex” in braking.

Q: You’re also an automotive industry veteran. How did your experience with Brembo parts help shape BuyBrakes.com into what it is today?

John Butler: I’m not only an automotive industry veteran, but I’m also a veteran of the high-performance brake parts industry. In fact, I started marketing Brembo big brake kits before anyone else did. Like I mentioned before, I marketed them in the early 90s. That was over 10 years before GM, Ford and Dodge began offering Brembo brakes on select performance vehicles from the factory.

Q: How involved are you in the daily operations of the business?

John Butler: Pretty involved. I’ve stayed with the company through thick and thin over the last 20 years. I work alongside my employees every day. I like to get to know our customers, so customer service is very important to me. Sometimes I even jump on phone calls to help our customers.

Q: BuyBrakes.com is known for its 5-star customer service. How do you, as the owner of BuyBrakes.com, connect with your customers?

John Butler: I text, chat with a finger on the pulse of the industry and the customer, and make sure I listen.

Q: BuyBrakes.com’s free concierge service is an amazing feature almost no one else offers. How did you guys come up with that idea?

John Butler: We started offering a free concierge service. Our customers love being able to call or text us for help finding the right brake parts for their cars.

Q: What do you want BuyBrakes.com to be known for?

John Butler: Quality and stellar customer service. We only carry tried-and-true high-quality brake parts and accessories.