Lessons From 10 Years Building an Australian Lighting Company - James Zagari
Bespoke Careers Podcast
James Zagari shares his ten-year journey of co-founding EST Lighting, an Australian company specializing in architectural and decorative lig
Key takeaways
- James Zagari co-founded EST Lighting in 2016 with former colleagues Savannah and Ted.
- The Melbourne showroom, designed by Christopher Elliott, focuses on creating an immersive experience rather than a simple product display.
Main topics
- Entrepreneurial journey
- Architectural lighting design
Notable quotes
Lighting is pretty hard to talk about, but easy to feel and nearly impossible to judge on paper.
Conclusion
The episode offers inspiring lessons on following professional intuiti
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) There's no holding back in the whole 10 years. There's never been one moment I went, have we done the right thing? Moving from, you Speaker 2 (0:05) know, employee to founder, how did you navigate that? Like, what were the problems that came up? You know, Speaker 1 (0:10) the usual, like, never run a business, so then you quickly discover all the other things that you need to do. And I think we're all working pretty hard anyway beforehand. So it wasn't as if all of a sudden we were doing late nights because we all were doing that anyway because we wanted to be successful in. Speaker 2 (0:27) our jobs. What led you to establish EST? You Speaker 1 (0:31) know when something just feels right? It was an instant. This feels right. Speaker 2 (0:37) Lighting is pretty hard to talk about, but easy to feel and nearly impossible to judge on paper. James Zagari has built his career around understanding and communicating that value. In 2016, he co-founded EST Lighting, bringing a carefully selected collection of architectural and decorative lighting brands to projects across Australia. And in this episode, we follow James's journey into the lighting industry. We explore what gets lost when lighting enters a project too late. how much of his role is design and how much depends on procurement, negotiation and relationship building Speaker 1 (1:09) and what becoming a founder and entrepreneur might have cost him. Speaker 2 (1:14) James, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks Speaker 1 (1:17) so much. Speaker 2 (1:17) Thanks, Chris. Good to be on, mate. Speaker 1 (1:19) When Speaker 2 (1:19) I think about lighting, it feels like one of those things that's really impactful in architecture, in our world, but it's also really difficult to explain. Do you feel like that's something you're always coming up against? Speaker 1 (1:32) All the time. So if people aren't in the lighting world or even design world, lighting can be something that's maybe a bit of an afterthought or not really considered. And then when people say, oh, what do you do? And say, oh, we're in lighting. It's like, what does that mean? And then you start to explain what we do. And it can take some explaining. And it's a tricky conversation sometimes, yeah. Speaker 2 (1:58) Obviously, I mean, I'm an architect. You're a lighting designer. You understand the world of all of this and the impact it has. Why do you think its value can be so hard to explain? Is it that tangible nature? You have to be in the space to get it sort of thing. Speaker 1 (2:11) Yeah, I mean, that helps. Like being and experiencing certainly helps. And if, you know, if you're not in the design world and, you know, you've just grown up with lighting and it's just a second, it's an afterthought. You know, you grow up and there's lights on at home and it's not, you know, it's not where you go to the shops and it's just there. It's not something you really, unless you sit down and start to think about what lights are in this space, how are they affecting me, it's just accepted. You just roll with it. It's when you stop and think about it, that's when we're explaining it and we say, hey, just have a think about where you're sitting, what you're doing, and people really start to focus on it. That's where it starts to sink in. Speaker 2 (2:51) And I guess that is, I mean, you know, in my world is trying to explain almost the intangible. You know, people respond to something. People understand how it makes them feel, whether it, you know, it works within a space. maybe don't have the vocabulary to explain that. Speaker 1 (3:10) Yeah, yeah, it's exactly right, mate. It's exactly right. So, I mean, the fastest thing we can do is get you to experience it. And if you, you know, whether that's, you Speaker 2 (3:20) know, Speaker 1 (3:21) doing a demonstration for you or, you know, explaining a space and, you know, maybe it's a beautifully lit restaurant and you feel so comfortable and there's something you can't quite explain, but it just feels good, that means the lighting's great. you know that's when you can start people oh yeah that's right i went to this restaurant it just felt amazing or we went to a beautiful hotel and it just so all these places are generally really well considered and that's where lighting is really really important and that's where people will get the best experience from lighting usually and Speaker 2 (3:51) i i suppose i mean my experience and and you know like like you mentioned i think sometimes lighting is considered too late even in the design process i mean i've worked on numerous projects through my career where you know even even in in the design sort of program the lighting has has come in into a certain point but i think we can all appreciate the relationship between the architecture the interiors and lighting how those things work together what do you feel like gets lost when is when lighting is considered too late Speaker 1 (4:25) uh It's a good question because if you do leave it too late and the project is too far down the road, we're very limited of what we can offer and what solutions we can help with. So the sooner we're on the project with you in the design process, the sooner we can sort of say, well, actually, why don't you do this or allow for this here? There might be some art going in that wasn't considered and we can allow for art lighting. There's all these little things that you might miss. But if it's too far down the road and the project's been cabled and certain cabling is missing, we're really limited then of what we can always help. But maybe we've lost some great opportunities for the project. For you, where does all this come from? Were you, Speaker 2 (5:13) as a child, staring at light bulbs, being admired and inspiration struck? What was your first foray into the lighting world? Speaker 1 (5:21) it was an accident uh so i think it's Speaker 2 (5:25) all right on the podcast we hear that quite a lot of careers coming about i don't think Speaker 1 (5:29) i've ever met anyone in our industry in lighting that was you know that was what they wanted to do and and set out to do it um but everyone who is in the industry as soon as they've had a taste they really love it so it's it's it's actually a really exciting space to be in and um my first um foray was out of desperation i replied to a tiny little ad in the paper um i was in between jobs and traveling and all sorts of stuff and um i found an ad for a lighting sales rep and that was uh just happened to be with phillips and phillips lighting right and that was it i once i'd had a taste of the technology and the lamps and you know back then it was just lamps it wasn't even fittings it was you know selling lamps to people like us at est and making sure that Philips technology was used. And I got the bug because the Philips catalog was bigger than a phone book. And there was lamps for everything. And it just opened my eyes to this crazy world. And that was it. So that was about 25 years ago. And did that require you to Speaker 2 (6:34) understand quite a technical aspect of the whole system, like understanding the actual products? Speaker 1 (6:41) Yeah, it did. But, you know, there was no secret. I went in with zero. lighting experience and i knew that uh and but they were really good at um getting you excited about it and getting excited about the technology and then from that you know you then have to you know keep that excitement and then learn there's so much to learn i'm still learning now you know there's just so many things to learn and the drivers and you know transformers and all sorts of stuff behind the scenes and dimming um so there's it's a lot of things to learn and connect together but the the end result of you know the lighting result of what you can bring to a project that's something that you have to experience and and then bring that as well from the other side so there's there's lots to learn and um i guess that's why it's it's never there's never a dull moment there's always a new tech and you know something happening every day um for us what about the sales side did that come naturally to you because Speaker 2 (7:39) that's something that a lot of people within this this general industry struggle with Speaker 1 (7:42) uh sales have always you know liked dealing with people and i think that was half the attraction of looking for that kind of role um whether it was lighting or something i wanted to be in sales kind of role meeting people you know and you know consulting um and just happened to be lighting that was the one that i found and um so i absolutely love that side of it and that's the part i enjoy most today is going and seeing architects and light designers and you know designers and having those conversations that's that's for me is the exciting part so how did you career Speaker 2 (8:14) evolve into what it is now? What was that journey Speaker 1 (8:17) like? It's, I guess there was always that ambition to always wanted to do better and, you know, start in sales and sort of grow up the ladder and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, I don't know, I've always been hungry to, to learn the next thing and make sure that I'm covering bases when I go and see somebody. And then it turned into, you know, there's a team and then. you know there's the business and then it's just evolved from there and but my favorite thing still is seeing people so you know after going through the whole motion um i still get a kick out of seeing going out on site or you know sitting in an in an office with an architect looking over a design how Speaker 2 (8:57) do you manage that sort of relationship between everything around it because obviously in in getting a you know, a design actually procured, actually built, there is a huge amount of stuff around this that people don't really kind of appreciate or see. You have to split your time between many sort of things. Yeah, Speaker 1 (9:17) we do. And look, we've got an amazing team that help with that now. So it's, you know, I'm certainly not doing everything and it's, you know, I'm going to see people and then, you know, we've got a great team here doing quotes for us and helping out at the other end and the requests that we're getting. And then... We've got people in the warehouse who do an amazing job with doing the orders for us. We don't have to do all of those things. We're very lucky. The team's really, really competent. And that allows us those freedoms to go and visit the clients and do what we want and do the things we love, I guess. Yeah, of Speaker 2 (9:53) course. And I suppose it's that thing of being able to understand the process of all those things in a sort of high level. What led you to establish EST? what was the things that you were trying to maybe the problems that you were trying to solve or the things that you're trying to react against throughout your career yeah Speaker 1 (10:11) so i guess uh look there was always a um one day you know in the back of the mind i'd love to do this and um and it wasn't just me it was