We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Kundel Jr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Robert, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?
The larger the company is the more disconnected it becomes from their customers. Many of our RESTORER customers rave about the service we offer stating “I wish more companies took notice of how you take care of your customers”.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Robert Kundel Jr and work a full time job as COO at KUNDEL Crane Division and also for the past 15 years I have been CEO of Wellington Corp | RESTORER brand tools. RESTORER was created to solve a surface finishing problem at KUNDEL and due to the high demand of the solution for KUNDEL I invented RESTORER tools which are now sold in stores in the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK serving residential, commercial and industrial customers.. We cannot beat other large tool manufacturers with volume of tools, distribution outlets, but RESTORER can beat them with our dedication to serving customers in a capacity large companies are not like text messaging, project support, video calls and more to help them solve their problem. Large tool companies are interested in selling SKU’s, RESTORER is interested in serving customers.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I sold the idea of my power tool invention to the big box store category buyer. Once I had them on the hook it was much easier to convince Stanley Black & Decker to license their brand name to get into stores. Our first launch we had zero dollars in our bank and was given 100 day terms by the factory no deposit required and Lowes paid us in 90 day terms. That 10 day window allowed us to process a $1.4 million dollar order with no money down. The profit of that $1.4 million was put back into the company to purchase more inventory and grow RESTORER to what it is today.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I have worked two jobs for the past 15 years to get to where I am today. One at our family business KUNDEL and the other for RESTORER while taking no pay. It took 7 years to get to market and we have been in the market for 8 years. I have had many promises and contract offers along the way that have either fallen apart or never come to pass. In order to be an entrepreneur you need to be resilient and use the word NO as fuel.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.restorertools.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inventor_of_the_restorer/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RestorerTools/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertk2/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RestorerTools
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/KundelCrane
Image Credits
I have rights to these photos