The Mailbox is Now Suited for Aging in Place: MB Sentinel's Founder, Jeff Kutas, Discusses His Innovative Approach to Mail Delivery Systems

Jeff Kutas, founder of MB Sentinel, discusses his aging in place product, the Box Gobbler, which solves the problem of package delivery and returns.

The product offers great ergonomics and ease of use, allowing packages to be delivered directly into the home. It is a universal solution for people of all ages and can be integrated with home technology systems.

The Box Gobbler is affordable and made in the USA. Kutas also highlights the company's partnership with St. Jude Children's Hospital and its success in the architectural design world.

The future of the product includes potential advancements in technology and integration with other adaptive equipment.

Takeaways

The Box Gobbler is an innovative solution for package delivery and returns, offering great ergonomics and ease of use.

The product is a universal solution for people of all ages and can be integrated with home technology systems.

The Box Gobbler is affordable and made in the USA, and the company has a partnership with St. Jude Research Hospital.

The product has gained popularity in the architectural design world and has potential for future advancements in technology.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
07:13 Universal Solution for Aging in Place
11:40 Integration with Home Technology Systems
23:06 Future Advancements in Technology

Paws Off! Protect Your Packages with a Box Gobbler! (youtube.com)

Fox and Friends Video: Bing Videos

Transcript

Janet Engel (00:01.608)
Hello everyone, and today we have Jeff Koutas. He is the founder of MB Sentinel, and he is here to tell us all about his product. I love that it's an aging in place product and that his wife helped him design this product. So Jeff, why don't you tell us about it and introduce yourself?

Jeff Kutas (00:29.11)
Fantastic, Jen. Thanks for having us here. Yeah, my name is Jeff Koutas. I am the co-inventor and founder of NBCNL Enterprises. We are based in Stephenville, Texas, and we've developed the next generation of package delivery saves.

Janet Engel (00:41.796)
All right, well, tell me, so how this is, is this your first product that you created?

Jeff Kutas (00:50.002)
This is the original idea. So I was out to solve my problems, Janet. And packages would come to her home. I closed another business. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. I'm starting a new company in the vitamin channel. Our family's in natural products retail for like, gosh, I was there for right at 17 years with a brick and mortar. And I realized how many people were gravitating towards online shopping. And ultimately, here we are today developing a consumer products company that has

Janet Engel (00:51.997)
Okay.

Janet Engel (01:09.914)
Okay.

Jeff Kutas (01:19.394)
great attributes for just great ergonomics for people on how they receive packages and how they have to return packages. It's just a nice appliance that most people aren't even familiar with as an option. It's like package delivery is coming to our life. We expect things to come to our homes, but we're just kind of living with the problems, right? We don't really think about how do we rethink our front porch? You know, who's done that? Well, that's MV Sentinel. We understand that everybody has the same problem.

but not everybody requires the same solution. This is my original idea. This was a mailbox when I thought and had the idea, hey, somebody needs to reinvent the mailbox. Well, there it was. That's because it didn't receive packages. The old mailboxes just handle mail, right? For a long time, we made them architecturally, you know, beautiful, depends on where you're back in the country. I mean, but these products here, this is an actual full service mailbox. And then we have this front doors for the packages. So when the carrier comes to your home, they actually put the packages in. I'll show you this finger bottom design here.

Janet Engel (01:58.562)
Mm-hmm.

Janet Engel (02:03.248)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Kutas (02:14.954)
That's where the, you know, gosh, this is our product genius right here. People, when people go, that's genius, like, you know, the guys did on Fox and Friends, you put that product in, and now when you turn this around, you'll notice that it comes out the back. Yeah, so, and then this is your letter tray for the rear. So everything we do is, it offers just great ergonomics and ease of use. You can imagine just not having to, from the carrier to the client.

Janet Engel (02:29.936)
No, why?

Jeff Kutas (02:41.694)
I mean to not have to reach down to the bottom of the cabinet to get a box off the floor. We all know what that's like, especially you being an OT, Janet, you understand the value of that, right? So do you have a video that shows the box gobbler, the really cool one with Galaxy in there?

Janet Engel (02:55.08)
Yes, let me pull that up because I love that video with the dog. And let me go back here and replay it. Now.

Jeff Kutas (02:59.786)
Oh yeah.

Janet Engel (03:30.16)
love that. And so how is that product different from the product that is behind you?

Jeff Kutas (03:37.054)
Absolutely. So that is specifically for package delivery. Not that we can't add letter mail attributes to that. That's more for like historical home districts and things of that nature. But that specific product is great for suburbia. When you have the front porch is your destination for packages to be delivered to your home, the Boss Gobber is a great solution for rethinking the front porch. With this product, imagine never having to go outside to pick up a

package during inclement weather and risk having to slip and fall, right? That's a huge concern for aging in place, right? So imagine not having to drive to the post office to return a package. You know, everybody would love that, right? What I know most people love is not having to return those packages for someone else, right? It's like we consume a lot of our daily time just trying to get some of these things done. In our life, to be able to stay home and enjoy a home that's very adaptive for people that want to age in place.

We've really gone a long ways to think about how do we help them with their activities of daily living. That's where my wife, being a licensed occupational therapist, has been so influential in our product designs and just the usability of our products. When people see us right now, they see our products, but honestly, until you have one, you really don't understand the experience. When you look at a wall insert like you showed earlier in the video there with Galaxy, I encourage everyone to go to boxgobler.com. You'll see the full functionality of that unit.

It's boxgobble.com and you'll see Ethan Make is their home builder out of Fort Worth. You know, he's actually showcasing our product and you'll see the packages go right through the wall, Janet, into the garage. And you'll notice that when you watch that video, and I'll show this with you, this is a piece of adaptive equipment which is a conveyor. So you can use it to help, you know, move capacity of packages into your home or you can actually elevate it and use it as a table. So that way your packages are more knee high and it's more ergonomic to get something that's right here than all the way on the floor, right?

So just like, you know, you and I've had, yeah, you and I've had talks about you putting, you know, you encourage people to put a bench on the front porch, so there's a place for people to leave things. And that's a great idea because it actually helps someone who's aging in place to have it at a different level, right, than being on the floor. But yeah, three things, I mean, so you talk about, you know, actually having a package that comes into the home and it's gonna, it makes, it really, you know, lends itself to one of the top home security pieces that you could actually add to a home, if you think about it. Now you don't have to open the door for,

Janet Engel (05:29.413)
Oh, well, I love that.

Jeff Kutas (05:58.806)
for someone that's there and there's really no point of complacency any longer once you have a designated space for package delivery. Whether you use our products or someone else's, the more that people have these types of package delivery systems on their home, the more it's going to help them, especially for those aging in place people, if it doesn't do but one thing and lend itself to having to make those extra trips to do returns and to not have to go outside. Our solutions are, yeah, our solution advantage is like 90% of all package deliveries. So if you're aging in place and you don't...

Janet Engel (06:18.83)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, tonight.

Jeff Kutas (06:27.89)
have a lot of packages come to your house because maybe you have something else going on, then you might need something smaller and there's other equipment out there that you'll find that does a really good job of that. But if you're looking to manage the line and share of package delivery in your home and you know, you just, in our products, I think they're remarkable for that. They're just great solutions and people love them. So if you have any questions about, yeah, go ahead.

Janet Engel (06:47.264)
Now, I do, I have a question. So I see the compartment up on the top and I know that you said that's for letters, but it can also be for medication of delivery of medications, which I think that's so great because we don't want our medications to be exposed to heat and light and then you also don't want them to get stolen. So that small compartment

Jeff Kutas (07:13.538)
That's it.

Janet Engel (07:16.513)
is a great place.

Jeff Kutas (07:19.066)
We're speaking to the mailbox here on this one, Janet. Yeah, I mean, if it'll fit into this area here, that's perfect for that. But if a carrier has a product and they wanna bring it to the home and it's this product, there's always a way, all you have to do is add the keypad code to your actual address on your shipping address. So then it's on every label when it comes. So whether it's a cabinet like this, or one of our wall hatches, yeah, it lends itself great application, especially for those pharma.

Janet Engel (07:21.942)
Hmm.

Jeff Kutas (07:49.119)
You know, shipments.

Janet Engel (07:50.484)
Yeah. Now I also want to show the other video that you have because you guys have really gotten a lot of press and it's a well-known product.

Jeff Kutas (08:03.414)
We're having a great time. Yeah, Skip Adell and Fox and Friends, we picked up some national exposure a couple weeks ago and it's just an incredible time to have this idea.

Janet Engel (08:15.72)
Let me, uh...

Janet Engel (09:48.412)
Yeah, so everyone gets those big packages. I once had to. Yeah. You know, I had a neighbor that was out of town and she said to me, Janet, can you go to my front door and bring in the boxes that I have? And this was someone who received boxes daily. And that, and so she actually wanted to bring.

Jeff Kutas (09:53.61)
Oh yeah, people love that Chewy box. They really can relate to how big that is. You know, it's like, that's a, yeah.

Jeff Kutas (10:09.012)
Right.

Janet Engel (10:17.832)
the box to my house because she didn't give me a key to her house. And I had to carry that Chewy box from across the street to my house. And it weighed, I don't know how many pounds. So I was like, well, I'm never doing that again. I'm sorry.

Jeff Kutas (10:32.758)
cat litter or something, right? It doesn't get, you know, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's, we, it's unbelievable how much we have to, you know, work around the, the inconvenience of being a last, you know, mile, you know, last mile delivery solutions company where that, that one component, we don't even know what's missing. We don't, we don't know that it's a problem because we just, we don't, we haven't really identified it yet, right? So, our products, everybody has the same problem.

Janet Engel (10:58.802)
Right.

Jeff Kutas (11:00.742)
Not everybody requires the same solution. Envy Sandal will be happy to help you understand what solution is right for you.

Janet Engel (11:07.428)
Yeah, so I want to learn more about how technology is integrated into your product.

Jeff Kutas (11:15.646)
Sure, so when we started this company, we started as an IoT based company. And I can tell you that, you know, that was, since then we've gone to the simple keypad that will actually unlock this box from the front as well as any of the equipment we have like a BossGobler. So this unit, it's already pre-wired with an egress switch. So if you ever wanted to be able to open this remotely, that's possible. If you wanted to integrate a delivery notification...

Janet Engel (11:37.832)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Kutas (11:40.778)
with our product because you have, whether it's Ring Nest, Control 4, there's so many different variants of different home technology. What we understand is, especially for agent in place, think about this, and this is me too. Remember the remote when it used to have like, just you and me over there turning it on and off? Maybe that's probably, I'm a little bit older than you are, gents, you maybe had a remote from day one, but I know I was the remote, right? In the beginning, my brother was or my sister was. Yeah. Whatever.

Janet Engel (12:04.393)
Oh no, trust me, I was old enough to be the remote. Yeah.

Jeff Kutas (12:08.286)
Yeah, I think I'm that person, but I know I am. But I'll tell you straight up that the TV remote, it's got so many, remember it's got so many buttons on there, we didn't even know how to run it, right? So this is what's great about our products. It's very simplistic. It works for everyone, from carriers to customers to caregivers. This is a simple way to go. And what's nice about it not being connected as a device, everyone's all about this connectivity, they want all this cool stuff that's tied to the internet. Well, the best thing to do, Janet, with our products is to put a video doorbell. Think about how simple that is. If you added a video doorbell.

Janet Engel (12:17.97)
Right, right.

Jeff Kutas (12:38.15)
or you had some type of camera with audio capability that's positioned to where you could actually see the Boss Gobbler. Yeah, they do, they do. A lot of these people that would probably love to have this product already have the camera, right? They just watch people take things off their porch, but when you look at the Boss Gobbler that you showed earlier, that product is fantastic because for aging in place people, imagine your mom, your dad not having to go outside to pick up a package during inclement weather.

Janet Engel (12:42.516)
which many people do now.

Jeff Kutas (13:04.298)
Imagine your mom or dad not having to go to the post office to return something. Imagine you not having to return it for them. So it's universal. And then these products, it's not like other adaptive equipment, not that it's not needed, but it's not like a handicap ramp that offers accessibility or something like that. It's not universal, like a product like this. It's people when they see these products that are set up for how people live in that specific home.

It's just a no-brainer that they just love the idea of this solution and then once they have it, the product experience for them, it just goes without saying.

Janet Engel (13:41.044)
Yeah, and I would liken this to any other universal design feature, like, you know, having motion sensor lighting or, you know, the video doorbell camera.

And then also one thing that has become very popular now is having them set up for an electrical vehicle. I know my husband and I just did that to our home. And that's a feature that can be listed as a universal design feature. It's something that's going to increase the value of your home.

Janet Engel (14:24.274)
design features and know that will increase your home value by at least 5%.

Jeff Kutas (14:26.187)
Right.

Jeff Kutas (14:33.394)
Yeah, I totally agree with you. You can enjoy that so much for the life that you use it there at your home. Initially when I started the company, I thought we're going to have a challenge with installation. There are so many qualified people that are out there that can actually help you do a DIY or renovation to add a box scobbler to your house. We see people in California, that's one of our hottest markets out there. We've added box scobblers to quite a few homes. We actually have an actual community there that's being developed that's putting one in every house. So you can imagine the deterrence value of that.

You're going to keep the wrongdoers out of your neighborhood through deterrence. Imagine how cool that would be, right? But yeah, it's just endless. I see such a great opportunity though for our products to be recognized as adaptive equipment for people that are aging, for not having to go outside and risk a slip and fall, for not having to pick things up completely off the floor because we've got these conveyor systems that you can put behind our product, especially for the wall insert, where it'll actually help elevate those packages. So to your point earlier where...

Janet Engel (15:12.596)
Thanks for watching!

Jeff Kutas (15:32.918)
You mentioned, hey, if you have a bench on the front porch, well, that's a great place to put the packages. Well, the Boss Gobbler even further rethinks that. It gives you the ergonomics of what the bench would, as well as gives you the security of having the product inside your house. So if people go to bossgobbler.com, they'll understand more of what I'm talking about with the full video that shows the packages being conveyed into the home. And we certainly look forward to.

helping them if they need help with an evaluation to understand which equipment that we have because everybody has the same problem, Janet, but not everybody requires the same solution. Just because you have a curbside mailbox, like for example in a suburban area, it doesn't mean that you need this mailbox. It might mean that if you're aging in a place that you want the wall hatch, if they're delivering the products to your front porch anyway, which is where they used to deliver all the mail, right? I mean, curbside mailboxes came about after they stopped taking letter mail to the home, but right now you can put a wall hatch on your house. It's great to have one.

I'm sure those are going to offer great usability as well as functionality for people that are in the home. They don't have to go outside. You don't have to go to your mailbox to get a package out if you're aging in place. Likely you'd rather have that go into your garage or to an Amazon closet or something of that nature. So lots of ideas on how we can help architects and designers and custom home builders on which solutions and which options would be most applicable for those homes. So it's just one more thing to think about. But just because you have a curbside mailbox doesn't mean you can't do it.

Janet Engel (16:36.052)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Kutas (16:54.026)
mean that you need to replace it with this, it might mean that you need to consider a wall hatch especially for an Asian in place client that just wants to improve their overall daily living activity as well as improve their overall safety at home.

Janet Engel (17:08.772)
So Jeff, tell me if I want to put this into my home, how do I find a person that's qualified to make this retrofit?

Jeff Kutas (17:20.434)
I'll tell you right now, I'd love you to call me first and we'll see. We've got a lot of placements out there already and we might know some good people that already have that experience. If not, gosh, there's so many handyman DIY people. You can go to Angie's List or just any of those that offer great reviews for those folks. But I have not had one location that we've had a challenge finding someone to do these installations. More and more of these builders are moving towards home improvement as well as...

home renovation, especially how things have changed in the building market. They're having to do things and be a little bit more creative. I'd certainly encourage them to look at aging in place opportunities for just to help supplement what they're doing if it's not something they already do full time.

Janet Engel (18:06.04)
Yeah, well, I just love this solution to mail delivery. So tell me, I know that you have a partnership with St. Jude Research Hospital. Tell me a little bit about that.

Jeff Kutas (18:21.458)
Yeah, that's such a privilege for us. Tony Monella in Vancouver, Washington called us up on a Sunday afternoon. My son was like, this guy wants us to donate a box gobbler to St. Jude Dream Home. And I'm like, what is St. Jude Dream Home? And I thought the closer I looked at that, the more I was like, my gosh, I've been wanting to work with St. Jude Children's Hospital for, gosh, over two decades now when I was in the health food business. And here comes this opportunity with Tony and we put the box gobbler in the first St. Jude Dream Home. And gosh, when the

you know, a lot of the folks were able to tour the home when they had the floor signings and all these other opportunities to showcase the home. They recognized how much people love the idea of this product. So from there, we were able to further develop a relationship with St. Jude where we're actually classified as a regional partner where we're allowed to proliferate our products through all the dream home builders, sponsor their dream homes and help them offer an amenity for those clients that are going to purchase this new house. And then, you know, a step further.

more than just sponsoring a product into a dream home to help educate people about our product. But once they do those placements, we'll take a percentage of those sales and put them back into the dream home fund for that community that offers that campaign. So we're working hard to take the stress off of the actual building supply companies. And it's our goal to raise $10,000 annually for each builder that we start working with. And you think about there's 50 builders. It's a...

it's going to be fun to see what happens next. But that's our goal is to really work hard, you know, through 26. And I think it's, everything's just going so great. We just love that partnership and it offers us great access to creating visibility for what we do. And it's certainly is a, it offers us, you know, great opportunity to raise the funds for a cause that's so near and dear to our heart.

Janet Engel (20:10.132)
So you've mentioned that this product has really taken off in the architectural design world. So yeah, tell us a little bit more about that.

Jeff Kutas (20:17.44)
Yes.

You know, we didn't intentionally build a business in luxury. We just set out to build something really awesome, right? And something that was also affordable for folks. So we got out there and kind of found that luxury was just loving what we were doing with our products. We worked hard, catered to that market channel, and we've even got a cabin server like twice as wide as this. When I left Atlanta, I was pitching down there in 2018. I got laughed out of Atlanta like, nobody's ever going to pay that much for a mailbox, Jeff. But I'll tell you, the world has changed a lot since 2018 in package delivery, right?

So you think about it now, it's become a challenge where if you have something delivered to your house and if it was stolen, now you have to be there to receive it. So there's a lot that goes, it's evolved with all of this, but I know everybody has the same problem, Janet, but not everybody requires the same solution. And these architects and designers, if they want to connect with us for us to help them understand from our expertise, it's really just sharing and understanding that we've developed with other architects and designers. Right?

Look forward to connecting with folks and figuring out which application, you know, would be, which model would be perfect for the, the solution that they require for that, you know, for that, for that build.

Janet Engel (21:26.676)
So how much does the box gobbler, that smaller unit, which I think would belong to many people's homes?

Jeff Kutas (21:34.666)
The price point, is that what you're asking me? How much is the price point for the Boscaba, or what does it cost to install it? Is that what you're asking me?

Janet Engel (21:43.365)
Uh, no, just the cost for the box gobbler.

Jeff Kutas (21:46.994)
Okay, so the retail price point on the box gobbler is $18.95. It's certainly reduced, just call us for builder pricing. It's a minimum 10% off of that. So yeah, if you're a community developer and we've got tier pricing based on volume and things of that nature. But honestly, it's $18.95 is our retail price. And typically, if you're a builder or a developer, then our lowest price point based on volume is like $15.95. So it's...

Janet Engel (21:55.195)
Okay.

Jeff Kutas (22:15.194)
I tell everyone the most expensive solutions are the ones that don't work. So when you look at other products that are out there, it really just depends on what the client's requirements are. What do they need? I mean sometimes people don't work a lot, but that's usually not the case. I can't imagine that's going to be the case for anyone moving forward with a home. I don't believe that the box gobbler would be a poor choice in a new amenity for any house. Somebody eventually will value that product.

Janet Engel (22:18.6)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (22:39.904)
Yeah, and it just has so much use. So tell me, I know your products are made in the US and you're out of Stevensville, Texas. What do you see in the future for how your product will evolve or change, and especially as it's related to our aging demographic?

Jeff Kutas (23:06.006)
Right. So the Asian demographic love our product because it's super simple. It has a keypad. And when we started out, we started out as an IoT device company. And that may come later. But the connectivity, I believe, comes through the Video Doorbell application. You think about it, you see it, and you talk to people. That needs to be remote somewhere of this product. So as far as evolving the tech on this, I think it's going to be more for like, how do you open these units? And what's super cool is we have an egress switch wired to everything that we put out there until all those applications further develop.

we can further improve on the user experience of that. When that day comes, if there's adaptive equipment, whether it's a 2D scanner or something else that we can use to integrate into this product, this being made of aluminum, it's just an integrator's dream. We've got the capacity to add and it's flexible to add new equipment. So if you have any questions about, hey, will it integrate with this? It virtually integrates with anything. So looking ahead towards future opportunities, we know that technology is going to evolve and we certainly created products that is not like one.

If you want the next, you don't want to be in that position with your clients where like, hey, I want the next gen of Parcelbox, right? Like you get the next gen of iPhone or whatever it is. This product is an expandable platform. All of our products are. So that way they just have long life and people can continue to improve their experience.

Janet Engel (24:12.677)
Right.

Janet Engel (24:21.828)
Yeah, well, I love your product. I love that your wife, which is also an occupational therapist, I don't know if we already mentioned that, but I love that she helped you design this product. And of course, she's thinking about ergonomics and thinking about how people...

Jeff Kutas (24:34.347)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (24:41.768)
Complete activities. And I know that you said your wife has been working with a geriatric population most of her career. So she definitely had the older adult in mind.

Jeff Kutas (24:49.546)
Yeah

Jeff Kutas (24:55.054)
Absolutely. I mean, Lisa, she's just gravitated to geriatric care when she was younger. She's just such a great caregiver. I'm so proud of her. But all of, I mean, you know, what's really fun though is like when you, when everything kind of comes together, it's almost, it's just so amazing that Lisa has that experience in home evaluation, being an occupational therapist, and further helping us, you know, inspire the designs that we offer to ensure that they're universal for anyone to use. I mean...

Janet Engel (25:03.303)
R.I.P.

Jeff Kutas (25:24.266)
Why not make it simple, right? So just love the utility that our products offer and people do as well, but it's just a great time and it's a great opportunity to have an OTE, to work alongside an OTE like I have for a lifetime. Lisa, I mean, before the staging in place was actually identified, Lisa was already gearing me to think that way. So it's something that I've grown up with and we're super excited that it just lends itself so well.

Janet Engel (25:43.394)
Right.

Janet Engel (25:47.78)
Yeah, well, Jeff, tell us, how can people go to your website, view your product, see videos?

Jeff Kutas (25:55.402)
Absolutely. You know the easiest way, I mean gosh, boxgobbler.com. If you go to boxgobbler.com, you're going to find the full length video for how the boxgobbler works. You'll also see there's a conveyor behind that which is an adaptive piece of equipment that can actually be elevated for a table so that way you can keep packages at knee high level more or less and improve the ergonomics of those products. But if you go to boxgobbler.com, you'll be sure to find me or connect with me on LinkedIn. Just find Jeff Kutas. It's Jeff K-U-T-A-S.

Janet Engel (26:16.386)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Kutas (26:24.382)
Love to keep them apprised of what we're doing there or go to our YouTube channel and you'll see some of the cool stuff that we're doing with WorkHard to get it out there.

Janet Engel (26:32.172)
All right, Jeff, well, thank you for being with us today.

Jeff Kutas (26:35.366)
Oh, so, so fun. Janet, thank you so much for having us.

Janet Engel (26:39.484)
You're welcome.