A Story of Innovation, Resourcefulness, & Creativity | Devee Joy McNally

Hustle is the buzzword we use today for courageous entrepreneurs who take risks and shoot from the hip. It takes grit to follow your heart and Devee Joy McNally is a perfect example of this type of tenacity and intuition.

Until Devee was 19 years old, she primarily worked in sales jobs. She sold Kirby vacuum cleaners, worked at Foot Locker and sold Hickory Farms® cheese. These were the places she honed her persuasive sales skills and realized her love for working with people. As a young woman, she and her then boyfriend partnered to build both a catering business and a real estate investment business. After a few years in catering and real estate, feeling ready for a new journey, Devee decided to explore the possibility of starting an importing and exporting business.

She planned a trip to Jamaica to tour a few furniture and rug factories. The idea of owning a little shop on Excelsior Boulevard selling furniture, rugs, and some other groovy things from the Caribbean passed through her mind. Twenty-five years old and with big wild dreams, she asked herself the question: “Why not do it?” as opposed to: “Can I do it?”

While staying in Negril, Jamaica in a budget hotel that resembled a shack on the beach with no air conditioning on a lumpy twin bed, Devee laid awake, her mind wandering to her grandma’s kitchen in Tennessee. Thinking about these spaces throughout time and how kitchens could be designed to improve the flow of life, Devee considered how expensive it could be to remodel and replace the existing cabinetry. As her mind continued to wander, she thought about how people utilize their drawers —everyone buys silverware trays, but otherwise, a person has all these blank drawers with no idea how to organize what’s in them. And then she saw it—the junk drawer—everyone has one!

With no money or idea about what a business plan entailed, Devee went to her father and asked him if he could build a product model. Since he was the head of the art department as an Editorial Artist for the Pioneer Press, he had the skill and ability to build her a plaster prototype and through her vision, illustrated the original sticker decals for each compartment.

Once the model was completed, Devee called the headquarters of a favorite local retailer, Target, and asked to speak with the housewares buyer. With her innate ability to sell, she pitched the Junk Drawer Organizer® to the buyer over the phone and was invited to come into to the office for a meeting. With the plaster model in hand, Devee arrived at the buyer’s office and showed him the product. He gave it a look over and said, “You know, it’s really novel. And if you make this, I’ll definitely take a look at it. I think it’s a really good idea.” His reaction inspired her to act. Now, she knew she had something that could actually be a real product.

By this time, her hustle was in full swing.  She had her original prototype and the trademark, but at 25 years old had no money to manufacture her new product. Through networking with a close friend, she located a West St. Paul manufacturer to make her original Junk Drawer Organizer®.

She entered a five-year joint venture agreement with the manufacturer. Once the initial investment was returned, they would split profits 50/50.

But Devee will never forget the day Walmart called her. She had been sending samples every month to the same buying office without response. It was 1992 and she used the courtesy phone at the local grocery store to check her voicemail. While listening, she found one from Walmart saying, “Yes, we’re trying to locate a Devee Philpot because we have this Junk Drawer Organizer® here and I’m supposed to let you know that we want to order these for all of the stores. So, you need to get in touch with us right away—if we have the right number.” Immediately, she jumped for joy, twirled, and danced around—she had done it!! She got Walmart. This was her moment.

After the initial launch of the Junk Drawer Organizer®, her customers asked, “What’s next? What’s new?” By this time, Devee was in 160 retailers and the demand for more products designed by her was high. From there, she created the 2-Tray Set and some basic silverware trays to keep up with all the business opportunities.

Devee’s continued success allowed her to take a break to start her family. After her five-year sabbatical, it occurred to Devee that she couldn’t walk away into the sunset with the success of the Junk Drawer Organizer®. She wanted to create a stand-out, original brand for her company that made space for a larger story and assortment. This led to the creation of the madesmart® brand and her legacy as a business woman, product designer, and mother.

As she walked down the aisles of major retailers, not one of her products, excluding the Junk Drawer Organizer®, looked distinctly different from the rest—they all blended in one big sea of white plastic. Devee wanted to stand-out and go above the rest—to create something more beautiful, more premium.  That’s where the idea for Classic Collection began.  The first of it’s kind, this collection introduced the idea of a soft-grip lining to a full assortment of drawer organizers and universal bins and is still a nation-wide best seller today. Devee continues to make madesmart®’s goal to be inventive and pursue creative-driven design in every way possible. Every product design has to be in alignment with who she is as a human, as a woman, and this instills her high-quality standards.

Devee’s journey is a story of innovation, resourcefulness, and creativity.  It has taken time, energy, successes, and failures for madesmart® to become what it is today. She continues to network her resources, coach her team (many young women leaders in development), and relentlessly pursue her vision to create products people love. Her humility, leadership skills, and immense creativity in business and design, have been critical ingredients that have allowed her to establish a successful, proudly women-owned™ business in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota.