There’s No Curbing a Tustin Firm as It Creates a Growing Industry

Some landscape contractors wince at the thought of concrete borders around gardens and flower beds. But landscaping curbs are popping up in yards across America, thanks to Creative Curb in Tustin.

In its first year of sales, Creative Curb last year sold more than 200 portable concrete curb extruding machines to entrepreneurs in search of their own business.

Creative Curb’s extruder, which resembles a Play-Doh machine as it squeezes out a finished concrete product, has created a new industry--practical, inexpensive curb installation.

The patents for the product passed through two hands before Ken Stuart, a former professional tennis player, bought them and the Creative Curb company in November, 1986.

‘Liked the Idea’

“I liked the idea. I just didn’t know how big the market would be,” said the 44-year-old Stuart, who started marketing the machine in January, 1987, and had sales last year of about $4 million.

So far, schoolteachers, retirees and investors who dream of financial independence have bought Creative Curb extruders and started businesses that have names such as Cal-Curb, Curb-Masters of New Jersey and Curbscape of Georgia.

For $22,000, investors get the curber, a trailer, molds, a start-up supply of concrete mixing materials and more than 30,000 brochures and marketing materials.

Mike Sperry of Covington, La., got his machine last month, and within a week he was exhibiting his CurbMaster business at a home show in the Superdome in New Orleans.

“People had never before thought of having curbs in their yards. But I got 60 or 70 people who want me to come out and put down curbs,” said Sperry, who works in the insurance business.

Industrial Curbing

Industrial curb extruding machinery used to lay curbing along roads and in commercial developments is too expensive and impractical for residential jobs.

The Creative Curb machine, which is about as wide as a wheelbarrow and weighs less than 100 pounds, can put down curb for as little as $3 to $4 a foot compared to $10 a foot with industrial machinery.

“I don’t know anybody else who does anything like this,” said Ward Malisch, editorial director of Concrete Construction magazine in Addison, Ill.

Even though Creative Curb seems to own its niche, curbing hasn’t become the national landscaping trend, and the country is still being educated on the idea.

For Stuart, the learning has come from marketing errors.

For instance, Stuart sold only the machine in his first sales. “The investor needs a trailer and marketing materials, and other equipment. For some reason, I thought all they needed to get started was the machine.”

Many Responses

And Stuart underestimated demand. Creative Curb advertised on cable television and in Entrepreneur magazine and inspired more inquiries from potential investors than he could answer as a one-man operations.

“They would call us. But I couldn’t call everyone back,” he said.

Creative Curb now has an administrative and sales staff of seven--all of whom know how to lay curbs--and the company gets sales help from the growing number of investors who already have Creative Curb machines. This weekend, the company is scheduled to move out of a cramped office in Costa Mesa and into a larger office in Tustin.

So far in 1988, the company has sold 42 machines, and Stuart expects to sell another 300 units by the end of the year.

Although some of Creative Curb’s customers are laying as much as 1,000 feet per week, Stuart said it hasn’t been easy to convince the country that curbing in the front yard is practical, attractive and easier to maintain than other types of landscape borders.

“I’m not real tickled with the look. I like brick,” said Joe Skelton, president of Lifescapes, a landscape contractor in Atlanta.

“I think it would be a nightmare to repair it or rip it out,” he said.

Concerned About Roots

Marvin Gross, owner of Marvin’s Garden & Landscape Services in Sarasota, Fla., said he is concerned that tree root systems would lift the concrete out of the ground.

“Personally it turns me off. It’s coarse and hard-looking, and if you’ll excuse me, a little gross,” he said.

But Stuart and many of Creative Curb’s buyers say the curbing is durable, has a finished look and is easy to rip out if the homeowner wants the concrete removed.

Stuart said he plans to make Creative Curb a diversified company, marketing several products.

He said he is studying several possibilities, including tree stump removers, instant brick facers that spray a textured-brick look on walls, and automatic hose reel winders.

“For every curb extruding machine there are 1,000 good ideas,” Stuart said. “Some are developed and some aren’t.”