THE VERY HUMBLE BEGINNINGS.
STEDI was founded in 2013 out of the small 290m2 warehouse in Melbourne, Australia, by founders Eddie & Sandra Yilmaz. Back then, the world of the LED driving light was largely novel. The first-ever round variant of LED driving light had only just hit the market in 2013. Like us, even the manufacturers around at that time were new to LED. We’re talking about a period when LED bars could barely throw out to 50m, and the lenses were made from glass.
On the one hand, it was a great time to enter the market because it wasn’t overly crowded – even the well-known brands had no LED offering. On the other hand, there was a severe lack of manufacturing and design know-how, and the subsequent product quality was way off the mark. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. LED failures, water ingress, housing turning bronze from UV – which all happened more often than it didn’t. We moved from manufacturer to manufacturer, hoping to find one that had stable quality. After wasting a lot of time and money, we assumed that all manufacturers were just as bad as the other, and the only way forward was to work closely with one to co-develop. While we were busy losing money and grappling with the quality issues, the market was getting more & more crowded by the second. We were barely making $10 on a 22” light bar.
This was an interesting point in time, as we watched many competitors exit the market. The ones who stayed were looking at ways to cut corners to reduce manufacturing costs. We pivoted in the opposite direction and started looking at ways to improve quality and performance – and that’s when our story really starts.
