“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

-Steve Jobs

Landmark Finish manufactured barriers for social distancing at schools, colleges and hospitals.

While the consumers provide deep insights into their needs and pain points, the innovation often comes from the producer. US Navy Veteran Stewart Junge and his wife Deanna Junge are the innovators who have the ability to rapidly prototype new products to help with the public health crisis and re-opening of the state of Massachusetts.

Starting in 2001 as a high-end millwork company, Landmark Finish evolved into a residential cabinetry business. During the 2008 financial crisis, they pivoted to commercial cabinetry and established themselves as a quality manufacturer in the region.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, the city of Boston shut down, along with every construction site. Landmark Finish had to close its doors to the public while still working and provisioning existing orders. The calls for new orders started to slow down. Even for the existing orders, deliveries came to a halt as nobody wanted to receive their products. Customers did not want anyone to enter their homes to install cabinets. Stewart and Deanna felt that the situation was very similar or even worse than the 2008 financial crisis.

Every crisis brings an opportunity to rise, and this was no different. Stewart felt that he had to act fast and make something with the tools, equipment, and supplies he had on hand. He didn’t want to experience 2008 all over again. One evening when Stewart and Deanna were watching an interview on the news, they noticed a person standing behind a makeshift plastic barrier answering questions. This was a ‘Eureka moment’ for Stewart when he realized that, clear barriers would be the new normal. The next morning Stewart was in the shop experimenting with several new designs and prototypes. He was creative and resourceful to leverage the existing materials he had on hand and the ones he could source easily. One consideration of the prototypes was that Stewart wanted to make a modular design that could be quickly assembled and does not require any external hardware that may be difficult to source. Another design consideration was the ability to flat-pack so the products could be easily shipped in bulk. In the end, Stewart came up with an innovative design in which the panels have hooks on them and the legs have slots so the panels easily hook into the slots and can be quickly assembled.

Stewart’s creativity was coupled with Deanna’s hustle and knowledge of their customers in schools, hospitals, and POS (Point of Sale) stations in retail stores. They were able to brainstorm many applications for the designs and prototypes they built. For example, nurse stations in hospitals have very large countertops so Stewart wanted to make sure the barriers would work seamlessly in that environment.

Within a few weeks, Stewart and Deanna started selling to essential businesses that needed to stay open in the midst of the Pandemic. They closed one of their first deal with Bangor Savings Bank, which is using Landmark Finish’s Safe-Guards in all 57 branches across New England. Things took off from there as universities and schools were looking for safe ways to re-open and bring the students back. The Landmark Finish team went on to sell Safe-Guards to Boston College, Brandies University, and other schools.

Deanna’s hustle to find new applications and opportunities led them to explore the primary school market. The Landmark Finish team came up with solutions for kidney bean tables used in elementary schools for collaborative work between multiple students and the teacher. The faculty of High Plain Elementary School in Andover were amazed when they saw Landmark Finish’s solutions and ultimately purchased barriers for all their 10 public school campuses in Andover.

The innovative hook and slot system helped them create several applications of the design. Using this system they created student desk shields, which are in every classroom of the Sacred Hearts School.

Landmark Finish was selected for a prestigious accelerator program from MassTech. Stewart, Deanna, and the other finalists benefitted from the Accelerator program conducted by Lever on the StartupWind Virtual Innovation Platform. The participants used the platform to quickly learn, ideate, conduct customer discovery, and create prototypes of the innovative products to help re-open the state of Massachusetts. The participants also used the StartupWind platform to create a business model canvas, connect with mentors using virtual mentoring, and get their feedback on their business plans for ramping up their businesses.

At the end of the program, Landmark Finish was the runner up of the challenge for their innovative Safe-Guard clear protection barrier design and business plan.

Deanna Junge, co-founder, and director of business development for Landmark Finish shared her experience with the StartupWind Virtual Innovation Platform:

Deanne Junge on her experience of using the StartupWind Virtual Innovation Platform

“The StartupWind platform is very easy to use and the Business Model Canvas feature helped us visualize our plan effectively. We could drill down the customer segments and the layout helped us narrow down the path we wanted to follow. It’s nice to be able to view your plan visually and have the ability to edit and modify it at any point. The customer discovery section helped us revisit the customer call reports and brainstorm innovative ways to solve their challenges. The mentoring feature is great as it offers access to mentors with a hassle-free meeting scheduling process. I would recommend StartupWind to any Small Business Entrepreneur.”

In a nutshell, the creativity and perseverance of US Navy Veteran, Stewart Junge coupled with the hustle of Deanna Junge kept them going through the pandemic, building innovative prototypes, showing them to customers in different segments, and launching a successful product line. Their passion has not only helped their business to thrive in the midst of the pandemic but also helped many essential businesses and services such as banks, hospitals, universities, and schools to safely re-open.