Today we’d like to introduce you to Kirby Corkill.
Kirby, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started Jarvis Lighting directly out of college in 2011. I was graduating with a music degree and knew I wasn’t going to make a living in the music industry. My dad is an electrician and had put up some LED lights. He said that LED was the future but the product wasn’t quite ready yet. I did a bunch of research and agreed, deciding to start a company with the goal of making a better product.
I started building experimental lights in the back of my dad’s shop. Soon after, I started selling them and had some initial success.
Jarvis Lighting’s first production location was in the ICNC incubator. We started building light fixtures and growing. We rented more and more space until we were renting 5 different units. It was pretty difficult to keep track of everything in multiple units so we moved to our own building in 2016.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Growing a company is never a smooth road. Our team has had to learn everything – including product design, how to run operations, how to market and sell, and how to grow a team. The biggest challenge is not knowing what to expect in the future. Things either go faster or slower than predicted and it is difficult to be prepared.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Jarvis Lighting – what should we know?
We specialize in commercial light fixtures. We build high-quality lights for applications where the product’s reliability is critical. The majority of our lights are installed in industrial buildings or gas stations. We also build parking lot lights and floodlights.
Our team is most proud of our gas station light fixture. This was the first team effort at designing a light. I pushed the team to develop something that offered better performance at a lower price point than any other light on the market. We knew what concepts we wanted to improve performance but we didn’t know how to build it. We had people from several departments brainstorm during weekly design sessions and we eventually created the concept for an awesome product.
One thing that sets us apart from other companies is our focus on long-term value. LED lighting provides tremendous benefits including reduced energy costs and reduced maintenance costs. If a product is poor quality, those benefits are never realized. We design and build every light so that it has maximum reliability and longevity.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Persistence is probably the most important quality required to be successful. Everything takes time to improve but the effort needs to be continuous.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1950 Estes Avenue Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
- Website: www.jarvislighting.com
- Phone: 800-363-1075
- Email: info@jarvislighting.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightdoneright/
- Twitter: @brightdoneright
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