Today we have Rebecca and Toby Stowe with us with Design Supply Doors.
[Intro – Host: Team Jensen]
Host: teaching you the art of industrial real estate this is On Air with Team Jensen [Music]
Host: hello listeners welcome to episode 5 of On Air, the art of industrial real estate. Today we have Rebecca and Toby Stowe with us with Design Supply Doors. Thank you for joining us today and coming on with Stuart and I.
Rebecca: yeah, thanks for having us.
Host: jumping right into things, how did you two meet and how did you end up at Design Supply Doors?
[Rebecca and Toby’s Origin Story]
Rebecca: so Toby is my best friend. I’ve known him since we were 10. We went to the same grade school and high school. We actually had a shared goddaughter before we were ever dating, so we’d be the two single people in the kitchen drinking beer at kids’ birthday parties. We both went away to college, came back, and started dating long after that.
Toby: luckily it worked out, or that would have been super awkward!
Rebecca: I was more in the marketing industry, and Toby’s been in the door business for a long time. I had no ambitions of coming into the door industry when we got married, but about seven years into our marriage, his parents wanted to retire. I had been working crazy hours in Corporate America, and we said we’ll give it three years—if it works, we’re in. It worked, and we’re still in. We’ve owned the business since January 2021, but we’ve operated it since 2017.
[Navigating the Pandemic]
Host: so you guys got your legs under you and then the pandemic happened. How was that as a new owner?
Toby: we actually planned to purchase the business in 2020, but that was a mess with PPP and navigating through that, so we pushed off the actual purchase. But it was almost an enlightening thing—we figured if we can navigate through this, we can figure the rest out.
Rebecca: luckily, we had changed our ERP software right before then, so we could actually send people home. But that first month, out of 34 people in the business, we only had seven people in the building. I moved my office to the front desk so I was letting people in and checking the mail. Supply chains were an absolute mess. Wood doors went from four-week lead times to up to 35 weeks.
Toby: because we are a stocking distributor, we got ahead of it and beefed up the inventory. Where others couldn’t get material, we had material. That was really our saving grace.
[Overview of Design Supply Doors]
Host: as far as Design Supply Doors, do you guys want to give listeners an overview of the business and where you fit into projects around town?
Toby: we’re a Division 8 and Division 10 supplier and installation group, and an open shop. Division 8 is commercial doors, frames, and hardware for anything from schools to hospitals to strip warehouses. Division 10 is toilet partitions and accessories. We sell primarily to General Contractors, but also directly to the public and have a wholesale arm.
Rebecca: we do work nationally—we’ve done work in Alaska and Hawaii and collect tax in 27 states—but most of our work is based around the Kansas City area. About 85% of our business is repeat customers because we make the GC’s life easy.
[Company History & Growth]
Host: how did your parents get it started?
Toby: my father got into it when he was working at a traditional hardware store. A guy walked in looking to buy a hammer, and my dad almost talked the guy into buying a riding lawnmower. The guy walked out, came back in, and said, “I didn’t come in here to buy that, you almost sold me. Do you want a job?” He eventually learned the industry and started Design Supply in 1984.
Host: how long have you all been at your location off Truman Road?
Toby: we’ve bounced around. We started in Blue Springs, then moved to Independence off Noland Road for ten years, then to 12th Street in Kansas City for 18 years. We bought the building we’re in now in 2013 and moved in April 2014.
[Roles and the Husband-Wife Dynamic]
Host: with your backgrounds, I imagine you handle different sides of the business?
Toby: operations and sales is my background. When we decided to buy the company together, we figured out our “sandbox.” You stay in your sandbox, and I’ll stay in mine. People ask how you work with your spouse, and honestly, she’s way smarter than me in a bunch of ways.
Rebecca: Toby is the super door nerd. He knows doors, frames, and hardware technically better than anyone in the city. My background is marketing, finance, and people management. I’m currently the CEO, he’s President. It works out for the best.
Host: do you guys carpool to work ever?
Rebecca: no, that’s the running joke! We drive separately everywhere. Work is my only “me time” and my audiobook time. Plus, we both coach volleyball, do Boy Scouts, and are involved in outside activities, so we’re always going similar places but never at the same time.
[Transitioning the Family Business]
Host: do your parents still ask about the business pretty often?
Toby: I thought my father would, but once they sold their house in Kansas City and moved down to the lake house full-time, that flipped a switch and they were done.
Rebecca: it says a lot about their trust. They left us with this 25 to 30-year gift they built and said, “Here you go.” It was terrifying, but they knew for us to really get in and take over, they couldn’t be one foot in, one foot out. We feel very grateful and blessed for the family dynamics we have.
[The Future & Kansas City Outlook]
Host: what does the next five to ten years look like for Design Supply Doors?
Rebecca: we’ve really been investing heavily in software, people, and scaling the operation. We got a wood door CNC machine, put in an entire layer of directors, and we’re currently in the midst of a major software update. Also, I was recently given the honor of being a “Women Who Mean Business” and we just finalized our WBE (Women’s Business Enterprise) for the city of Kansas City.
Toby: with those things, we’re getting private invites and meetings with larger General Contractors that didn’t even know we existed.
Host: what are you guys excited for regarding Kansas City over the next couple of years?
Rebecca: the big events like the World Cup are fun, but what’s really cool is seeing the big companies, manufacturing, and distribution moving here. There are EV battery companies looking here. Kansas City is on the map with major corporations in a way that it was not even five years ago.
[Wrap-Up]
Host: if any listeners are trying to reach out or get a hold of you guys, what’s the best way to do so?
Rebecca: designsupplydoors.com. Our website is the best place to see the depth of what we do, and there’s a contact form on there. We’re also all over LinkedIn. Not TikTok yet, we’ll see!
Host: well we’re really excited about where things are headed and happy to have you guys here in Kansas City. Thank you so much.
Rebecca: thanks very much!
