Cubicall sees continued success after move to North Las Vegas
The Pucci brothers were just looking for some peace and quiet at their marketing agency. Finding no easy solution, they went out and created their own.
Now Nick and Anthony Pucci are in their sixth year of running their company Cubicall, which makes and sells customizable enclosed booths, and in year three of operating from the Las Vegas Valley. Cubicall began in 2017 selling phone booths and — with influences from the pandemic and an appearance on ABC’s “Shark Tank” — has since expanded to sell medical exam and isolation booths, studies and meeting rooms.
Though the Puccis founded their company in Los Angeles, they packed up shop and moved in January 2020 to Southern Nevada, where they’ve already outgrown one address and may soon outgrow their current digs.
The brothers said they grew frustrated trying to manufacture in California and began exploring a move in 2018. They met with North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and Vegas Chamber, who sold the brothers on their visions of community and building a diverse economy. Anthony Pucci said he had no such meetings with city officials, chambers of commerce or economic development groups while doing business in California.
“Coming here was just a breath of fresh air,” Anthony Pucci, 37, said Wednesday at the North Las Vegas warehouse.
Cubicall modules are designed as private booths to take a phone call, hold a medical exam or have a small meeting. They require no build-out and can be changed, knocked down and put back up to suit individual needs. Booth prices start at $7,695.
Discovering wider need
The Pucci brothers’ business, which has at least doubled the previous year’s sales each year it has existed, began as a solution to an annoying problem. The Puccis were tired of leaving their open-floor office for the outdoors or the stairwell or the car to have a phone conversation in private. The brothers went looking for an old phone booth to buy and place in their Los Angeles-area marketing agency office.
Their search led to a “field full of them in Texas” and a product made in the Netherlands, but both options were prohibitively expensive, Anthony Pucci said. The brothers then built and installed their own booth to take phone calls, Nick Pucci said. Clients noticed the booth, and word started getting around that they made the cubicle.
At first, Nick Pucci said, they assumed the privacy issue was unique to small agencies such as theirs.
“Right away, it was like, no, IBM has this problem. Google has this problem. All these companies, massive companies that were like, ‘Oh, my God, this is like a huge issue in the workplace,’” said Nick Pucci, 35.
By 2019, they were pitching their business in the “Shark Tank.” The brothers received two offers — one from Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary and another from Barbara Corcoran. The Puccis accepted Corcoran’s offer of $350,000 for a 25 percent equity stake in the business.
Though the deal eventually fell through, the brothers say the show was a great experience. The “Shark Tank” appearance represented free advertising for their company, Nick Pucci said. The pandemic halted production of the reality show, leaving their appearance on the show as one of the most recent episodes and a staple in the rerun rotation.
Pandemic pivot
Anthony Pucci said people sitting at home and watching the show would go to the Cubicall website and see the company had started selling private medical booths in response to the pandemic.
“The only problem I have with it is I can’t watch the show anymore,” Anthony Pucci said, “because I get so much anxiety watching all the contestants go through the experience.”
The company sold hundreds of medical testing and exam booths, he said, and the pivot to medical booths buoyed the company during the worst of the pandemic’s economic impact. The Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance highlighted Cubicall in 2020 as part of its Company Spotlight series for Cubicall’s shift to the medical field.
“Cubicall is a great example of the kind of innovative business we’re seeing move to Southern Nevada due to the region’s high quality of life and relatively low cost of living,” said Jared Smith, the alliance’s chief operating officer. “General and advanced manufacturing companies are thriving in the region with our business-friendly environment and highly trainable talent pipeline.”
Now the company does about 95 percent of its business with offices, Anthony Pucci said.
Cubicall sells to businesses as small as outfits with 10 employees and as large as Fortune 100 companies, Anthony Pucci said. The company website lists SAP, Goldman Sachs, Cisco, Bloomberg and the Department of Homeland Security among its high-profile clients.
One of the company’s custom booths is a replica of the one featured in the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and was shown in a Walmart commercial for the 2020 Super Bowl.
“Every time we build one of them to leave in our offices as an example, somebody calls like, ‘I want it — now,’” Anthony Pucci said.
Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.