Despite being a startup, we have been able to stretch out across the globe to areas such as New York, Los Angeles, Athens, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh City and more. Operating across multiple time zones can be tricky, however, as we need to we stay connected with associates, advisors, partners and clients without always being in the same location. However, by using the latest technology and staying true to our foundational principles including forging long-term relationships, we are able to stay connected as Ideoli expands international. To stay connected when running a multi-national company, consider these five areas: 1. Constant Communication If you’re not in the same location as someone, it can be easy to let communication decline over time. However, it’s crucial to go against this tendency and instead, find ways to maintain constant communication. Today’s digitally-enabled world makes it easier than ever to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime. This communication does not have to be lengthy, but we find that even just texting clients to say hi or getting a quick project status update over the phone with project managers is important to make sure that the business is moving forward successfully on all fronts. 2. Digital Face Time Seeing is believing, so sometimes communication needs to take the form of digital face time. Whether it’s using video chat platforms like Google Hangouts, FaceTime or Skype, or just sending a photo or video of things like product prototypes, digital face time can help close the physical divide between people working in different locations. 3. Physical Face Time While digital face time helps us stay connected, it’s also important to not discount real face-to-face meetings. At Ideoli, we plan business trips with the goal of maximizing in-person interactions so that we can more fully-connect with those important to our work. Sometimes that means planning multi-purpose trips, such as traveling to a client’s site to oversee an installation, followed by meeting with a local supplier and potential interviews for new partners. 4. Project Management Tools To keep everything organized and to maintain a solid communication flow even when associates are far away from each other, we rely on project management tools as our lifeline to the business. Doing so helps us ensure that everyone is on the same page. While we want to maintain constant communication, we also don’t want to start falling into unnecessary communication due to associates duplicating work or missing deadlines because not everyone has the right information. And when traveling, tools like Asana, Zoho and Salesforce make it easy to stay up-to-date, rather than having to dig through emails to find out what’s going on. 5. Targeted Time Zone Shifts Lastly, Ideoli finds that having constant coverage across international time zones helps us stay connected, have a consistent flow of communication around the world and allows for a truly integrated organization. Rather than trying to serve all our clients globally only during U.S. business hours, we have associates and partners in multiple time zones that can help us provide client coverage around the clock. That way, the company as a whole does not miss out on important opportunities or issues due to time differences Running a successful multi-national company requires staying connected, and Ideoli is always on the front lines of using technology to make this possible.
The rise of e-commerce has been a challenge for brick-and-mortar retailers, and many face strained budgets. As a result, retailers are turning to the practice of value engineering, which involves analyzing the value of each of the elements within a retail space—ranging from the type of flooring to the lighting—to see whether the elements provide enough functionality to make the cost worth it. While value engineering is a smart practice to optimize budgets, retailers should understand that there are pros and cons. Being aware of the downsides can help them avoid these pitfalls and ensure that their spaces look great and provide quality functionality without breaking the bank. Value engineering includes the following pros and cons for retailers: Pro: Increased Cost Savings By analyzing whether elements provide enough benefit to justify the cost, then retailers can eliminate unnecessary expenses. For example, if a store needs to put in new flooring, it might find that laminate wood looks just as nice as hardwood, while having a much lower price and easier maintenance. Con: Overlooked Expenses On the other hand, value engineering can cause stores to overlook certain expenses. An incandescent light bulb might provide the same luminosity as an LED bulb for less cost, which would indicate that the incandescent is a better value. However, it’s important to consider the larger picture of costs, such as the maintenance fees for replacing hard-to-access bulbs, as incandescents might only last a year, while LEDs can last over a decade. Pro: Enhanced Functionality Since value engineering is all about maximizing the right ratio between functionality and cost, that means that sometimes instead of focusing on minimizing cost, retailers can choose elements that have such high functionality that it justifies the cost, and thus provides great value. For example, multi-purpose furniture like adjustable desks that can be used in an office or to display merchandise provide a lot of functionality and perhaps more value than other desks. Con: Risk of Diminished Customer and Employee Experience While some elements may not seem to provide much value on the surface, it’s important to consider how all elements affect customer and employee experience. If a brand opens a new store that uses the lowest-cost materials without regard for where they were sourced from, then that could push away customers and employees who prefer retailers that use and promote sustainable materials. Pro: An Eye for Optimization Value engineering optimizes the design and buildout of retail environments, so by getting into that mindset, retailers can look to optimize other areas of the company, ranging from how they staff their business to how they spend budget on advertising campaigns. The pros tend to outweigh the cons for using value engineering in the retail industry, and by recognizing the downsides and working with trusted partners like Ideoli, retailers get even more value out of value engineering.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what happens if the beholder’s eyes are not even given a fair chance? Poor-quality mirrors and lighting can put a damper on your true appearance, so it’s important for retail stores, hotels, restaurants, offices and other commercial environments to not disregard this area. Ideoli’s LED backlit mirrors make a big difference on how you look. Check out our video on our Vimeo channel to see the impact they can have. Designers and owners of commercial spaces often overlook the importance and influence that mirrors in areas such as dressing rooms and bathrooms have on their clients and visitors. To cut costs and keep budgets low, many designers and owners simply slap a mirror on the wall and a standard downlight above it, and call it a day. But these poor conditions have negative consequences. When a customer goes into a poorly lit dressing room to try on a special outfit, for instance, the lighting could cast unflattering shadows, making them less inclined to buy the clothes. Or if the mirror quality is poor, the customer might not be able to see how good the clothes actually look. So instead, commercial environments should turn to Ideoli’s customized LED backlit mirrors,which are perfect for a wide variety of businesses such as retail stores, restaurants, hotels, gyms and offices. By integrating highly efficient LED lighting into the mirrors in hundreds of different variations, our mirrors properly illuminate the subject, helping them appreciate their true appearance. Depending on your space requirements and preference, we can customize the size, lighting configuration, light quality and several other items, which together allow for clean, consistent and complimentary lighting for your customers and employees. Ideoli not only manufactures great-looking products; our products themselves can help people look better.
As a startup, Ideoli has been in full-hustle mode for the past couple years, building an international network of partners and clients, while developing innovative products within our four pillars of products: lighting fixtures, furniture, showcase pieces and sourced products. With so many exciting projects going on, we decided to organize a Reveal Show in June to help partners and clients see of what we’ve been up to, what we’ve been manufacturing and where we’ve been doing it, so that together we can invigorate more spaces. Just as we transform blank spaces into engaging environments for clients, Ideoli transformed an empty studio in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan into a vibrant, interactive showroom for the Reveal Show. The setup included samples of our offerings, ranging from truly custom lighting fixtures, to commercially and ergonomically friendly workstations, to chic yet functional restaurant furniture, to high-end retail mirrors with the latest integrated LED technology. We also had renderings of some of the most innovative and prestigious projects we have invigorated, and we displayed photos and videos from our work from around the world. And since we love to make work fun too, we transformed the space into an entertaining environment. When guests walked in, they got to practice their best red-carpet poses for our photographer/videographer. From there, they could head to the bar to grab some espresso, beer or wine to fuel creative thinking, or even some coconut water to stay hydrated. We brought in some great snacks, sandwiches and local New York pizza for guests to enjoy as they interacted with our team and our amazing product offerings. We even had a basketball hoop for a free-throw shooting contest, during which guests competed to win several prizes. Throughout the course of the Reveal Show, we hosted distribution partners, clients, designers, architects, prospects, advisers, former colleagues and friends, to bring everyone into the fold and establish momentum for bringing the products on display into further production runs for clients. Not only was it a great opportunity to display the physical products we’ve been creating, but it also provided guests with an opportunity to meet more of our team and interact with others within the industry, so that they could expand their networks as well. This networking came to a high point during our swanky happy hour to close out the Reveal Show; our wide variety of great partners got a chance to get to know one another better in a fun, yet professional, atmosphere. As a result of the show’s success, Ideoli is planning to establish permanent showrooms for its key partners in strategic markets within North America and Europe, and we look forward to helping more clients make their visions for their spaces a reality.
Ideoli has been all over the world working with partners and clients to design and procure best-in-class products, but until now, we haven’t had the pleasure to cross the border into Canada for a client installation. So we were really excited to make the trip to Vancouver to help our client, an international athletic apparel retailer, install LED backlit mirrors as the focal point of fitting rooms in their renovated flagship store, which will enhance customers’ shopping experience Vancouver is a bustling seaport in British Columbia and is among Canada’s densest, most ethnically-diverse cities. It also ranks as one of the healthiest cities in the world, so it makes sense for the world’s leader in yoga apparel to be based here, helping others get the gear they need to live an active lifestyle. Check out the video on our Vimeo channel to see the highlights from our trip to this amazing city and the work that we did for our client. As part of our commitment to helping clients invigorate their spaces from conception to reality, Ideoli often directly oversees product installations so we can ensure the finished product matches everyone’s expectations. For this particular client, we installed LED backlit mirrors with custom lighting specs so that customers can fully see the details of the activewear they try on in the ever-so-private fitting rooms. Whether customers are trying on clothes they need to run a marathon or want to find something comfortable to wear while running errands, it’s important that they can clearly see all the design elements and the overall fit of the products while they’re in the store so that they can fully be satisfied with their purchases . Otherwise, they might realize when they get home that they need to return an item because it does not look the way they assumed it did in the store. Plus, well-lit mirrors like our LED backlit ones help customers feel good about what they’re trying on and encourage them to make purchases. To save money, many retailers use poor-quality mirrors with harsh lighting that casts unwanted shadows and diminishes the overall look, whereas ours deliver desirable reflections. So by working with our client to install these LED backlit mirrors, we can help customers see how great they really look and ensure they know what they’re really purchasing. Doing so enhances customer experience and helps the store keep inventory flowing off the shelves. Ideoli’s lighting expertise helps clients turn seemingly small details like fitting room mirrors into differentiators for retail stores.
Lighting is far more intricate than just flipping a switch to illuminate a space. In reality, it is a broad and varied category that includes factors such as light source, shape, color and more, that when formed in the right combination can take spaces to the next level. For commercial environments including retail, restaurant, hospitality, theater, fitness centers and office spaces, it’s important to choose the right lighting to maximize customer and employee experience. A study by researchers from the University of Mississippi and the University of Texas found that lights of different wavelengths affect “blood pressure, pulse, respiration rates, brain activity, and biorhythms.” So if commercial spaces want to elicit certain feelings, they should consider the following five creative uses for lighting that go beyond turning a room from dark to bright: 1. Contrast lighting Adjusting the color and brightness of lighting can create dramatic contrasts that help make a space more appealing. Just as a high contrast photo can help differentiate various features, such as the sky from a body of water, contrast lighting in a restaurant, for example, can help distinguish the dining area from the bar area. We’re experts at helping you find the right level of contrast to make your space pop. 2. Showcase lighting In addition to illuminating certain sections of your space with contrast lighting, you can really draw customers in with showcase lighting. Like a spotlight on a stage, showcase lighting highlights specific areas, such as when a retail store wants to show off its top products in the center of the space. Adding showcase lighting to a central display brings the area to life and thereby helps increase traffic, and ultimately drive sales. 3. Mood-based flood lighting Flood lighting can be used to illuminate large areas, and we know how to select and position floodlights to evoke certain moods. For example, a hotel could use mood-based flood lighting to illuminate a front entrance and make it seem inviting, while a cafe could use a floodlight for a performance area in a way that looks more artful. 4. Accent lighting For those items that you want to highlight but which aren’t in a central place for show caselighting, you can still turn to accent lighting to really set these objects off. For example, you can use accent lighting like wall sconces to better frame pictures on the wall. Doing so helps ensure that customers don’t miss items that might not be as immediately visible spatially, but when they do pass by these objects, the accent lighting helps draw them in. 5. Shelf lighting Shelving in and of itself can be creative, but if you really want to take it to the next level, add lighting to the shelves, such as an LED trim along each shelf to help highlight the items on display. Shelf lighting can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from shoe stores that want to add light beneath each sneaker, to bakeries that want to show off each pastry on display. By looking at lighting from these creative lenses, you can truly invigorate your space in a way that helps others appreciate all the work you’ve put into the design. Ideoli has its roots in lighting, so you can be confident working with us to help you cover all the details of selecting and setting up the perfect lighting. Facebook-f Linkedin-in Tumblr Envelope
Choosing and creating furniture elements for a commercial space should be more involved than picking random pieces from a catalog. Instead, commercial environments like retail, restaurant, hotel and office spaces can be invigorated by working collaboratively with Ideoli to design custom furniture that covers all their criteria– whatever it may be. In order to best design these pieces, it’s helpful for clients to follow these four tips when engaging with us to design their furniture elements: 1. Know and tell us who your target customer is. The whole process should start with an understanding of the intended audience and user of the furniture element, whether it’s a table, chair, stool, showcase unit or display case. We then focus on designing furniture that is more than aesthetically pleasing, creating pieces that support your overall business goals. For example, a high-end jeweler will likely want more elegant furniture designs that accentuates the gems, compared to a toy store, which might want more fun pieces. In addition to being the right style, the designed furniture needs to be durable depending on the specific use application. There are many variables to consider, so you should lean into our expertise on how to find the right combination based on your target customers. 2. Share your ideas and inspiration with us. Once we know the target customer and use, it’s time to let the creative juices flow. We love collaborating with clients, specifiers and the distributors, so we encourage you to share all your ideas and inspiration with us for how you envision your space to look and the elements needed to achieve this. From there, we can use our experience to design and recommend the pieces that will help turn that vision into reality. 3. Tell us the mood you want to set in your commercial space As alluded to earlier, having different target audiences means commercial spaces will want different moods that match the intended customer types. But just because a space is in a certain category, like jewelry or restaurant, it doesn’t mean we assume the furniture has to look a certain way. Perhaps you’re trying to make the store more approachable and upbeat, so knowing that, we could take steps such as altering materials, color and shape, while still using elements that provide the necessary functionality. 4. Consider multi-purpose furniture elements. As part of maximizing your budget, think about whether you could benefit from multi-purpose furniture. Commercial environments with outdoor space might want furniture that can be used inside or out, depending on the season, and as a result they can save on the amount of pieces they need to purchase. Additionally, furniture can be multi-purpose indoors, such as a table that can be used for eating or to display items. Some commercial spaces want this flexibility, while others would be best served by having furniture with a specific purpose, so it’s important to consider what works best for you and the spaces you’re furnishing. All these tips might make the process seem complex, but we try to make it fun and encourage you to do the same, like with our client brainstorming sessions over espresso or beer. By going through this process, together we can design the best furniture for your retail space, maximize your budget and deliver a truly customized and quality product. Facebook-f Linkedin-in Tumblr Envelope
A lot of companies talk the talk when it comes to providing exceptional customer service and having a great company culture, but at Ideoli, we make sure to walk the walk. Or in this case, shoot hoops… Ideoli hosted a free throw shooting contest at its premiere Reveal Show in New York City. Guests competed to win great prizes (and bragging rights). When we decided to host a Reveal Show in NYC, we knew we wanted to create a space that not only revealed our products, but represented who we are as a brand. So while space in Manhattan can be a bit tight, to put it gently, that didn’t stop us from bringing in a real basketball hoop so we could organize a free throw shooting contest for our guests. While it may not seem like a game would make a big difference to a company, we firmly believe that each addition we make, no matter the size, adds up to a company with a sustainable culture of creativity and honesty, with a drive to be the best in the industry. Whether it’s an espresso fueled brainstorming session, or sharing thoughts with clients while shooting some hoops, it’s part of our culture at Ideoli. The contest spanned the course of the Reveal Show, with guests young and old trying to score as many baskets as possible within 30 seconds, while our team rebounded and provided the assists. At the end of the Reveal Show, our client set the high mark with 21 baskets in 30 seconds. Even for those who didn’t win the top prizes, everyone had a great time shooting off some steam during the workday and trying to reach their personal bests. We love to have fun with our clients, and our free throw shooting contest is just one example of the many ways in which we build our strong, innovative culture.
From colleagues to vendors to clients, there are so many different types of people with whom you might interact. The team at Ideoli firmly believes that these interactions should be nurtured into long-term professional relationships whenever possible, because doing so helps grow a network that creates long-term success (and friendships). By focusing on long-term relationships rather than transactional ones, the team at Ideoli and its partners benefit in many ways. When forming these bonds with colleagues and partners, for instance, our team members build strong professional networks that we can call upon for advice and referrals. And building long-term relationships with clients helps create a stronger business, since we don’t need to exhaust as many resources constantly trying to find new clients to replace old ones. Meanwhile, clients benefit from having a stronger relationship with us, because we more fully understand their needs. This commitment to building long-term relationships was on full display at Ideoli’s premiere Reveal Show in New York City, as we hosted former bosses and colleagues of our Co-Founders George Stroumboulis and Chris Hartswick, for example, and bringing these old connections into the fold of what we’re doing at Ideoli helps further establish the brand and provides us with stronger support. Building long-term relationships is at the core of Ideoli’s work, and we look forward to both deepening the ones we have and creating new, lasting ones.
The recipe for entrepreneurial success has many ingredients, including expertise, commitment and timing, but one component that should not be overlooked is passion. You can have a great idea for a business and know how to execute a successful strategy, but without putting your heart into it, the business becomes unsustainable as the challenges of entrepreneurship take a toll. Ideoli’s Co-Founders, George Stroumboulis and Chris Hartswick, started Ideoli not just because they saw a gap in the market for custom furniture, fixtures and lighting, but because they had a passion for the industry, having just exited an LED lighting start-up that was acquired and went public on the New York Stock Exchange. In this new venture in an industry that’s highly relationship-based, George and Chris knew it wouldn’t succeed unless they could be truly passionate about their work, especially considering that the early days of a start-up aren’t always glamorous and require founders to wear an assortment of hats. That’s why George and Chris split the work according to their passions. George honing in on developing long-term relationships with partners and clients and building a fun, positive image for the brand, while Chris has focused more on the product side of the business, which has included forming strong manufacturing partnerships around the world to create products they could truly support. “I’m passionate about connecting with others to help them realize their goals, and clients pick up on that when we interact,” says George Stroumboulis. “That genuineness helps us form strong bonds that enable long-term success, rather than being so transactional.” As those relationships are formed, Chris’s passion for developing best-in-class products shines through as he and George work together to help clients invigorate their spaces. “By being truly interested in how clients want to design their spaces, I’m able to more easily work with them to customize the products that help them reach their goals, rather than trying to fit products into assumptions about what works best for their spaces,” says Chris Hartswick. The passion of Ideoli’s founders has propelled the company to international success in a short period of time, and it will sustain the company as it continues to grow.
While different types of light bulbs have their place, LED lighting is the new wave—they run cooler and look cooler, which means clients can save money and make money by using LEDs. That’s why we integrate LED lighting into many of our products, ranging from lighting fixtures for food prep areas to backlit mirrors in retail stores. LED lighting offers huge advantages over traditional incandescent light bulbs and even the more recent compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs, including the following: 1. Efficiency LED bulbs operate at a lower wattage than other types of bulbs, because LEDs let much less energy escape as heat. So they require less power to produce the same amount of light, thus making them more energy efficient. If the U.S. switched entirely to LED bulbs over the next two decades, it would cut electricity consumption for lighting nearly in half, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). 2. Longevity LEDs also last significantly longer than other bulbs because of both how long the light itself functions and their durability. In fact, high-quality LED bulbs last over 25 times as long as traditional lightbulbs, notes the DOE. 3. Affordability Even though LEDs can cost more upfront than other bulbs, the lifetime savings due to longevity and efficiency significantly favor LEDs. In some instances, this additional efficiency can also help companies qualify for incentives or rebates from utilities or governments, thus furthering the savings. 4. Design LEDs arguably look a lot better than other bulbs and don’t have a delayed reaction when turning them on like CFLs. Not only are there a lot of color options, but the LEDs themselves are quite small, so they can be combined into more interesting designs or strung along the perimeter of a product. So when clients want innovative lighting displays or unique shapes for lighting fixtures, Ideoli can make that happen using LEDs. Clients can then create spaces that attract even more customers, which makes LEDs a great investment. Ideoli stays on the cutting edge of lighting design using LEDs, and with these lights we help clients invigorate their spaces however they imagine.
In specialized businesses like industrial lighting, the terminology can seem like a completely different language. So it can be difficult to understand some of the features of industrial lighting products, which makes purchasing decisions more difficult. That’s why we want to help our clients pick up the lingo. Too often, we hear industrial lighting terms being used in the wrong context or simply misunderstood. Rather than trying to use this information gap to take advantage of clients, we prefer to work with them to get on the same page and build trusted, long-term partnerships. Take a look at our cheat sheet of some of the top lighting terms so you can stay in the know: Aperture: The diameter in the opening of a downlight, measured in inches. Sometimes manufacturers round up to the next whole-inch increment. Average Rated Life: The number of hours at which half of a large group of product samples fail under standard test conditions. Since this is a median value, any lamp or group of lamps may vary from the published rated life. Beam Angle: The angle at which luminous intensity is 50 percent of the maximum intensity. Candela: The Systeme International d’Unities (SI) unit of luminous intensity. One candela equals one lumen per steradian. This term was formerly known as candle. Color Rendering Index (CRI): A rating index commonly used to represent how well a light source renders the colors of objects that it illuminates. At its maximum value of 100, the colors of objects can be expected to be seen as they would appear under an incandescent or daylight spectrum of the same correlated color temperature (CCT). Sources with CRI values of less than 50 are generally regarded as rendering colors poorly, meaning colors may appear unnatural. Efficacy: The ratio of the light output of a lamp (expressed as lumens) to its active power (expressed as watts), expressed as lumens per watt. Illuminance: The density of luminous flux incident upon a surface. Illuminance is measured in footcandles (lumens/square foot) or lux (lumens/square meter). One footcandle equals 10.76 lux. Lumen (lm): A unit measurement of the rate at which a lamp produces light. A lamp’s light output rating expresses the total amount of light emitted in all directions per unit time. Ratings of initial light output provided by manufacturers express the totallight output after 100 hours of operation. While these are some popular terms you’re likely to come across, you can dive into even more depth by taking a look at this glossary from the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.