about three years ago, i undertook a fairly massive remodeling project. i had been through the terror and frustration of doing a couple of bathrooms. we had german faucets, an american bathtub, italian tile, and here we are sitting there trying to figure out how to put all these parts and pieces together that were not standardized or thought through in any way. i was walking down the street literally with a sink with my wife trying to go to three different stores to match it up with the tile she wanted. i said, there has to be a more efficient way to put a bathroom together than this. there had to be a better way than that. reporter: those words, there had to be a better way, launched a new business for these two california-based entrepreneurs. john crowley, a construction systems engineer, and bill huncher, a former wall street banker, are founders of bath simple. a bathroom remodeling business just outside san francisco. as john and bill saw it, the
savings in the cost, time is money in contracting. reporter: john and bill say that big manufacturers are starting to take notice of this new supply chain approach. they see it as an alternative distribution channel to the big-box stores which control much of the industry. the manufacturers see bath simple as a way to open up a whole new channel for how they sell their product. they re stuck in the home depot/lowe s channel which is a big channel, but it s a low-margin, you know it s dangerous to have one big customer. we sell to the contractors out there, and they get it very quickly. skurps, too, are taking notice. the online software makes the selection process faster and easier than the traditional chore of running from store to store. i have three middle school kids, and i just don t have the time. so this whole idea intrigued me with bath simple, so that s how i got started with that. from the manufacturers to the
streamline the bathroom remodeling business. they created bath simple. a bath in a box concept treating the whole bathroom as a single product. they put the bathtub, toilet, tiles and even the tiniest screws and nails all inside one box. for more, watch your business sunday mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. let s do this. look who s early! [ female announcer ] prepare to ace your dental check-up. fight plaque and gingivitis
the public s mind. we had a story in the washington post today, a gentleman who has seen a lot of politics. he said for a lot of time i was a cautious optimist, now i m a confused pessimist. that sums up what s going on in the public s mind. whether or not they strike a deal that will get us through the august 2nd deal, but this pretty much muddies the waters for everybody involved in the future. we ll have much more on this we ve been getting comments, quotes, we re waiting to see what s happening in that meeting. we also have other news of the day coming up. keep it right here. time for the your business entrepreneur of the week. john crawly and bill hunter set out to streamline the bathroom remodeling business, they created bath simple, a bath in a box concept. they put the bathtub, toilets,
site. which is by far the most efficient way. for building contractor chris owner of the bay area canyon construction, that means nothing is missing and therefore no lost time and no expensive delays. it definitely results in a savings in the cost. time is money in contracting. what we re talking about is mass customization. i would say what we re doing in the bathroom is not dissimilar from what dell does with pcs. dell basically lets you define your pc configuration. and they make it. they have parts on the shelf and they aggregate it and put it in a box and ship it to you in a week. john and bill say that big manufacturers are starting to take notice of this new supply chain approach. they see it as an alternative drishs channel to the big box stores which control much of the industry. the manufacturers see bath simple as a way to open up a whole new channel for how they