Maryla and Derek Bosek

“We’re completely crazy about keeping our good reputation. It’s the most important thing in our business.”

Maryla Bosek

Kabbage Helps Factory Plaza Build Its Reputation for Building Quality Kitchens

Maryla Bosek and her husband, Darek, caught the entrepreneurial bug in 2004 when they were working in real estate. As they saw more kitchens getting outfitted with granite countertops, they realized they could build a business around the trend. They opened Factory Plaza outside Chicago, and started traveling to China to build relationships with granite quarries. “When you import directly from the quarries, you cut out the middleman,” Maryla says. “That helps us cut prices significantly.”

Even in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Maryla and Darek grew Factory Plaza, adding marble countertops to their product line. It was a good time to invest in the business given demand from their customers. They bought a 45,000-square-foot warehouse in Bensenville, Illinois to house the company. The luxury of extra space encouraged them to think bigger.

“We were only using half the building,” Maryla says. “We decided to add kitchen cabinets, so our customers could buy them in the same place they were buying countertops.” When the couple found that imported cabinets were not up to Factory Plaza’s standards, they added a complete cabinet production line to make them in-house.

Funding to Staff a New Production Line

Maryla and Darek took out several bank loans to buy the warehouse and the cabinet production equipment. “Because we had so many loans, we had trouble with cash flow,” Maryla says. “We wanted to hire people to work the cabinet production line, and to do more advertising, but we didn’t have money for that.”

When she learned about Kabbage, Maryla applied for a line of credit. “I heard Kabbage made decisions on loans in just a few days, which seemed surprising,” she says. “But we were approved right away.” She and Darek used the first loans to hire three people for the cabinet production line; as sales grew, they increased the production line team to 16 people.

Growing Sales and Maintaining High Quality

By expanding their product line to include kitchen cabinets, sinks and fixtures, Factory Plaza added $500,000 to its annual sales. In the next couple of years, Maryla and Darek hope to add another $2 million in sales from cabinets alone. They’re also considering purchasing laser equipment to measure countertops, which will help save time and improve accuracy when preparing customer orders.

Loans from Kabbage help Maryla and Darek maintain their standard for excellent quality. With a team of 35, Factory Plaza is staffed to provide the customer service that keeps people coming back. The company also currently works with four crews of independent contractors for installation. “We have one person who spends hours checking each cabinet order. We want to make sure that when we deliver them, the customers are one hundred percent satisfied,” Maryla says. “We’re completely crazy about keeping our good reputation. It’s the most important thing in our business.”