Business View Magazine | November 2019

92 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 locations in southwest and central Florida: two in Naples, and one in Ft. Myers, Sarasota, Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Orlando. “These stores continue to grow because we are finding that when people are making decisions about frameless shower doors, which is not an inexpensive investment, they like to come in and touch the products as opposed to ordering something online, receiving it, and finding out it wasn’t exactly what they wanted,” Daubmann explains. “So, by setting up the showrooms, people can not only come in with photos of their existing shower, we can help designers, and even architects, do some value engineering planning,” he continues. “Many times, the type of glass is just as important as the configuration of the shower – from functionality, ease of access, being able to turn the water on before you enter, the availability of a towel upon exiting – all of these things are taken into consideration when doing layout, including considerations for the glass’ strength, durability, clarity, and privacy.” During the company’s first decade in business, it was purchasing glass from out of state. “The best that we could find that would suit our purposes was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,” Daubmann notes. “But to have a truck come into Naples once a week, with the volume of glass that we were selling, just didn’t make sense for our builders and contractors. So, my son, Douglas, decided to do the valuation of what it would cost for us to grow our business vertically and invest in machinery where we could make tempered glass ourselves. And that started in 2013. We formed a company called D3 Glass – “D” is for our last name, Daubmann, and it was the three of us – Keith, Doug, and myself. So, D3 Glass is now the manufacturing arm for all of the MY Shower Door stores. “In order to fill our capacity, we were also selling to other glass shops in the area that were in the same position we were in; that they had to purchase out-of-state or from vendors far away. So, even though they were competitors, if they were in the position to win the job from the customer, they