The STEDI Story
"We are passionate about designing and manufacturing the best LED lighting products in the game, with pricing that makes them available to everyone." - Eddie (founder)
THE VERY HUMBLE BEGINNINGS.
STEDI was founded in 2013 out of a small 290 m2 warehouse in Melbourne, Australia, by Eddie and Sandra Yilmaz. Back then, LED driving lights were in their infancy. The first-ever round LED driving light had only just hit the market that same year. Like us, the existing manufacturers at the time were new to LEDs. 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 gest-known brands had no LED offering. On the other hand, there was a severe lack of manufacturing and design know-how, and as a result product quality was way off the mark. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. LED failures, water ingress, housing turning bronze from exposure to UV rays – all of this was simply the norm. We moved from manufacturer to manufacturer, hoping to find one that offered stable quality. After wasting a lot of time and money, we assumed that all manufacturers were equally bad, and the only way forward was to work closely with one as a co-developer. While we were busy losing money and grappling with 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 for ways to cut corners to reduce manufacturing costs. We pivoted in the opposite direction and started focusing on how to improve quality and performance. That’s where our story really begins.
"THE EARLY DAYS WERE TOUGH..." - Eddie
"The early days were tough! Looking back, I still can't comprehend how we pulled it off. We had two kids in tow (our 3-year-old daughter and 3-month-old son), were heavily mortgaged, and had no employees - except for our dads (to whom we are forever grateful), who dropped in from time to time to give us a hand." Both kids were by our side the whole way. For some strange reason, we didn't take them to childcare. (bless you, Jolly Jumper). We were officially working 6-days a week, but unofficially we were working 8 days a week unloading containers, packing orders, providing customer service, sales, photography, managing web content and marketing, and most importantly, toilet training our son." - Eddie
"...EVERYTHING WENT WRONG..." - Sandra
"From the very beginning, we were determined to become a leader in high performance LED automotive auxiliary lighting. In the early days, everything went wrong product-wise, but we always had the willingness to do the right thing for our customers and made sure that they were never at any disadvantage. These were not only important experiences; they ultimately became the driver of our success" - Sandra
“ Today, we know what works and what doesn’t because we’ve been there.” - Eddie
THEN IN 2017, WE PUT IT ALL ON THE LINE - AGAIN.
Then in 2017, we put everything on the line again and purchased what would become the new STEDI headquarters. We vividly remember saying that the new 1,000m2 facility would take us a decade to grow into. Fast-forward to 2021, and were already preparing to move to an even bigger site in May 2022.
HERE WE GO AGAIN - MAY 2022
In May 2022, we yet again made our biggest logistical and operations upgrade to date when we moved to a new 4,000m2 purpose-built facility at 1/1 Magnesium Place Truganina, Victoria.
The new STEDI HQ will provide the additional warehouse and logistics platform required to support and drive future growth.
Having significantly invested in a deeper and wider inventory and enhanced its customer-service and logistics capacity, STEDI is well and truly poised to expand its horizons acrossAsia-Pacific and beyond.
IT STARTED WITH OUR DESIRE TO BE THE BEST.
Today, the name STEDI stands for cutting-edge design and market-leading performance. Our unwavering commitment to bleeding-edge performance and robustness that has made us a globally distributed, coveted brand. Other companies talk about the little things; for us, the little things are everything. We obsess over even the most trivial details and design elements to achieve visually stunning high-performing luminaires. When you enter the world of STEDI you’re buying into a product that is mechanically and optically engineered with our know-how and tooling, backed by our reputation and warranty. Our lights won’t fade, turn yellow, or fall off at the first sign of corrugations. Our photometric data is lab tested, not photoshopped – we stand by it.
SOME THINGS HAVE CHANGED, SOME THINGS NEVER WILL.
- Today we have a passionate and incredibly talented 24-person team.
- We ship an average of 14,000 parcels per month directly to our customers.
- Our brand is international, created in Australia and now available in Canada, it is also distributed in the following countries and regions; the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the G.C.C, Panama, Kenya, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Germany, Philippines, Cambodia, South Africa, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Mongolia, and Indonesia.
Despite our humbling growth over the years, our mission is and always will be to bring to market the very best products and to always go above and beyond the call of duty for our customers.
AT YOUR OEM OR ODM SERVICE.
Whether you're in locomotive, mining or automotive industry we invite you to leverage our design and production strength. Our capability includes printed circuit boards, die-cast parts, extrusions, injection moulding, sheet metal, rapid prototyping. Our core competencies are optical and electrical engineering, and our team has a long track record with some of the world's most revered lighting manufacturers. Whether your product concept is sketched on a napkin or ready for prototyping, we have the design and production capability to bring it to life.
Noteworthy clients;
ANSTO Australian Government - Custom luminaires designed for Australia's only nuclear reactor research plant. The custom luminaires were designed to meet strict metallurgy specifications to ensure no contamination would occur within the cooling pool, where the lighting fixtures are immersed to a depth of 5.0 m.
Special Operation (NSW) Australian Government - Commission to produce an easily deployable, vehicle-mounted 850nm infrared luminaire to use with night-vision systems.
Victoria Police - Approved vendor for Victoria Police fleet auxiliary lighting.
Mining - We work with Thiess, Glencore, and Sojitz - Get in touch with our team to discover how we implemented a higher-performing and more robust lighting rollout while saving our client more than C$180,000 on one site alone.
Ford Australia - Injection moulded switch fascia designed for the Ford Ranger, Everest, and Raptor. Offered as a genuine accessory through Ford's dealer network.
Australia - Head Office
ETAIL INVESTMENTS PTY LTD trading as STEDI is conveniently located at:
1/1 Magnesium Place, Truganina, Melbourne, Victoria Australia 3029
Phone 03 8360 9261
Canada - Office
1995 Markham Road, Scarborough, ON M1B 2W3
[email protected]
One hundred percent of our LED driving lights, work lights and associated accessories are shipped FREE to all Australian states, including NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory, ACT and South Australia.
ETAIL INVESTMENTS PTY LTD (ABN: 71 163 418 826) trading as STEDI is conveniently located at Phone 03 8360 9261 Monday to Friday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm 1/1 Magnesium Place, Truganina, Melbourne, Victoria Australia 3029