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Because there is a feeling that if you don't trust yourself, then no one else will. Golsana hasn't left anything behind. What she's done is bet on herself her entire life. And that instinct has shaped everything, including her very successful lighting design practice in New York City today.
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Entrepreneurship and owning business is very lonely. The way you pick your clients, you pick your projects, it's now more meaningful into what that brings to your life and how you can contribute to it rather than how famous that's gonna make you. Starting your own design business teaches you a lot about yourself and what are the things to care about most and what are the things that didn't matter
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It was a massive project. And I was like, oh wow. So I got the project right away through just this random connection and I immediately hired an intern. You were betting on yourself, but you've bet on yourself your entire life. Because there is a feeling of if you don't trust yourself, then no one else will. The big picture vision is not an end goal of, let's get to this point. Point A is basically, let's go towards
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Before we jump in, I want to thank five companies that show up for this community. Mark, Diode LED, Kelvix, Leadflex, and Targeti USA. Because this show exists thanks to their belief in designers and the way they work every single day. Before we get into this episode, I want to talk about one of those companies because it's worth your attention.
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Here's the truth. Nobody gets into design to manage logistics. You got into this to shape how people experience space. But somewhere between the concept and the installation, the friction creeps in. The timelines, the specs, the supply chain. That's the problem the team at Mark is actually solving. Their architectural linear portfolio is built to disappear into your intent. Restrained when the space calls for it. Bold when the moment demands it.
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always serving the architecture, never competing with it. And behind it, the kind of specification simplicity and manufacturing scale that lets you stay focused on the work that matters. Get back to designing.
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You have lived in many countries. You've lived in seven different cities. Now you're building a company out of the ground in New York City, your own boutique lighting design studio. What's one thing that you thought you had figured out that you've now realized is completely wrong? The main thing that I was...
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very much committed to and believed when I was younger, right out of school, was the definition of what's success and happiness in the way that I thought big names, impactful buildings, large projects. That was the definition of success for me. And then as I evolved in my career, now for me the smallest,
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collaboration, a conversation with someone that is like-minded and just sparks of ideas is for me happiness and when I feel mostly fulfilled in my career. So then you let go of all those learnings from before and
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the way you pick your clients, they pick your, pick your projects. It's now more meaningful into what, what that brings to your life and how you can contribute to it rather than how famous that's going to make you. What do you feel like that realization turned itself upside down for you? I think it was after starting my, my own business, which, which was a journey. It's been more than seven years and I,
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I feel like entrepreneurship or starting your own design business teaches you a lot about yourself and what are the things to care about most and what are the things that didn't matter or...
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they were not as essential for you or for your clients or for the world in general, but you were taught to believe those. So for me, the realization of what makes me feel happier and feel successful happens throughout the course of running my business.
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When you look back on what may have taught you what success looked like, who was teaching that to you or where were you absorbing that opinion or impression from? So I think the world of design and architecture and technology,
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There is a number of factors that you think these are. If I checkbox these items, then I'm a successful person. But then when you do that, and then at the same time, inside yourself, you feel like, what really makes me happy? Or what is the moment that I felt the happiest? And when was the time that my creativity found a way to...
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to speak when I had a voice. And, um, those are times that you start to, to look back and see, is this what I really wanted to be published in, in a magazine or to win an award? Or the honest answer is when you had, um,
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A very successful brainstorm with an architect that you like to work with. Come out of that meeting, that project is never going to be built. But that felt more successful than having finished projects that have names, big names. If you think about what that emotion is, can you describe it?
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I have that good feeling of accomplishment when I am surrounded by people that are creative and are interesting to talk to and we share conversations and ideas. Whether it's a smallest thing, it's a piece of furniture or a light fixture or a bigger project. But the feeling, I would say a feeling of happiness and feeling of
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the answer to the why of why are you doing this and what's the meaning for it. So it's, yeah, I think that's all I can say. It's like you feeling that you got your answer.
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You've now started to grow in ways you also never knew existed because you're a true entrepreneur and you're building a business. You mentioned how you've kind of proven yourself wrong once already. Is there anything that you feel is a very important truth to you at this point that others probably or might not agree with?
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I am not sure if others wouldn't agree with, but something that is a challenge. And it's also, it's something that I'm mindfully being careful of following the path that staying authentic and keep my vision and all the things I believed. What was it like to set the foundation for this unknown process of entrepreneurship for you in building a brand?
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Yeah, I was curious about these things. I was just recently telling my coworkers at work, in my trips from Cyprus to Tehran, I would stop in Istanbul and go buy a lot of clothes in the sales and come home and set up a pop-up of styles. I would just invite anyone I knew, they would come and buy those clothes.
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What was the curiosity there? I mean, was it like you were scamming the system, beating the system? You knew somebody needed something and you wanted to help them get it? What do you think drove you in these early years? That's a good question. Each of those things are a little different, but at the same time, I wanted to... I think as a kid, when you...
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do these things that you want independence and you want to stand out for me was that when I was 13, I wanted to
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be the 13 year old that actually makes money and has a vision and is, you know, I was always looking at my future as something bright and nice for myself. I had a lot of hopes. So then it was like little steps to build that. And if you want to be a photographer, I always thought I wanted to be an artist.
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And so all of these things, all of the creative paths I took was contributing to that big vision for me. What did it feel like to go work for someone when you had this impulse of, was there this clash inside of you of, I can't do my project because I'm doing someone else's project? Yeah.
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And no, but it was, I wouldn't say it was a clash because I always, somehow I knew I am in a path. So I didn't want to go beyond where I was. I wanted to take the right steps because it was very thoughtful of, okay, I need to do this many years of work here, this many years in my mind. I had that clear, but also...
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it was moments, there were moments that were not comfortable because your employer asks you to do something that you don't think it's right. Like that design decision could have been better and you're inexperienced. So you question that in your mind, but I never actually reflected that much in work. So I didn't have a clash with my employers ever, but I think that actually helped me in a way that because I was...
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I very much acted as a person with grit and wanting to make things better. My jobs were also kind of my projects in a way that everywhere I went and worked was it was always bringing up ideas how to make that place better. How can we do things more efficient, better? How do we can add to our creativity? How we can contribute to that?
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And luckily, that was always appreciated. I was lucky because the people I worked with were open people. I can imagine that can be a clash if someone is investing too much in your idea. Your first professional experience was in Barcelona.
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My very first professional experience was in Tehran. So I went to Cyprus, studied and came back to Tehran. And I started to work in an architecture studio. I did an internship and then I worked there for, worked in another studio for about a year. And then I went to Madrid. So I had a year gap between my bachelor's and master's degrees.
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And there's this interesting moment, right? Architecture is what you're fascinated with. Lighting shows up. How does lighting show up? And then how does it suck you in?
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It showed up pretty accidental. So I wanted to go to Spain. I want, that was my plan to learn Spanish, to be with my cousins that were there and study. And I wanted to go to Europe and I want to continue my architecture studies. But I found this master's degree. Actually, my cousin found it for me. She was like, how about this one? And it was, uh, architectural lighting design. And I was just curious to explore it. The last, um,
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course I took at architecture school in my last semester was daylight daylighting so I was I had a very fresh in my mind and I was oh yeah that's great it's uh it's a sign I have to go like study this to get better and then study more architecture later on so I went to school in Spain and
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It was honestly all throughout my studies and even my internship. That was just an experiment before getting back to architecture. And then I figured that it took me some years to fully... I feel it gave me more tools and more ability to transform spaces. And it's just fascinating.
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Having this immaterial with no surfaces, you're in a space, they give you a space and regardless of materiality or formal shape or anything, you can fully transform it.
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So I'm now much more interested in perception of the world and spaces than actually. So that kind of makes lighting more interesting for me than architecture because the perception just happens with light.
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You move to the West Coast and there's an opportunity there for you. But then you end up in New York City. What does that time look like for you in terms of trusting your process, but knowing your goal is to do this all on your own? So going to the West Coast and Barrickley in San Francisco was a move I...
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It was by choice, but at the same time it was something that I had to do at that moment in my life. And I went for it with a lot of motivation and grit to fully adapt to a new continent and new culture.
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And it wasn't as fluid as I thought it will be, but something that started to go very exciting was the opportunities I found in my career in the U.S., in the West, in San Francisco, places I worked were very inspiring.
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I felt like I've been growing and the growth was more visible. I guess it's, um, it's cultural. So hierarchies are more blurry in, in the U S than in Europe. So you actually can show yourself and there's a lot of opportunities for emerging designers. So I just start to feel that as something that I, I actually want to work more towards and.
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So I did some experiments in working in an architecture studio, but be an in-house lighting designer, still between architecture and lighting challenges in that time. But I started to do a lot of art projects when I went to Svescos. So I kept that experience.
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I guess part of my vision or what I want to do as part of like, this is me and I started a website for myself and then I'm like an artist, but I also do lighting design, but I also do architecture, kind of that thing. But kept going, working in the lighting design studios that I was working and keep growing and learning, learning my skills and learning.
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And it was a very interesting time because I learned a lot from the places I worked in San Francisco. Because it was a different type of lighting design that I was not used to. I was used to public urban lighting in Spain. And then this was more focused into commercial public projects with all the U.S. regulations that I didn't know about. Yeah.
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Coming to New York was a whole different story is probably an understatement. There's no city like it in the world. It's home for everyone, no matter what you believe, no matter where you come from. It's a melting pot. It's incredibly diverse. Tough, but loving and welcoming. What was it like to feel that tough love, yet welcome with open arms to New York City when you got here? It's been honestly an amazing journey being in New York.
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I, as everyone here, or all New Yorkers have this love-hate with the city, my love has been always more, although it's tough to be here. It's really tough. But there is this energy in New York that I felt it from the moment I moved here and started my job at an architecture studio, actually.
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just the vibrancy the it's the flow of ideas and different people from all over the world it just suddenly hit me like the first month i was like this is where i have to be and stay because nobody is from here and everybody's from here and then and that's that's that's for the first time after being um um
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Leaving home after many years, I felt like this is home because you build your, because you're going to build a home yourself. It's not something fixed that you're going to just fit into. It's just the most flexible, inspiring place ever. At that point, you'd lived in six cities. Do you remember the first client you got and what it felt like?
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Yeah, actually I do remember because it was very unexpected. I started Seed without a project. I didn't have a freelance gig or nothing. I was just there spending from my savings with a vision. And that was all I had. And a laptop. And a world of experience. And a world of experience. And the whole New York City in front of me that is competitive. Yeah.
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but I knew some people. So I think I started thinking about methods of marketing, which is tough for a designer that has never done it. But I realized there's one thing that I'm good at, which is,
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connecting with people and making friends. So I started to go to every architecture event that is being held in the city, be it in a university or AIA or all that. And there was this one event I was, I registered to and was in Upper West Side. I lived in Brooklyn.
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It was 7 p.m. I was so tired. And then I was like, should I go? I was just contemplating. I was like, yeah, I'm going to go. So I sat on a train for an hour and
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to Upper West Side. It was a women's, AIA women events for recognition of the fellow AIA people that the architects. So I went there, did talk to people and made a friend that was not the head of any architecture studio, but
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She was just the only person I felt connected to because I talked to everyone, but she was very receptive. And she scheduled a lunch and learned for me the day after at their office.
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It was a big office, actually, a large architecture office. So I went there, and it was like lunch and learn. I have to buy food for 50 people. But I did it. How many people did you buy lunch for? I think there were maybe 36 people. That's awesome.
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But I had this presentation ready because I've been working on these marketing materials. So I presented. They all loved it. The principal of that studio asked to meet with me right away. And he gave me a project, which was the Columbia Art School. They were remodeling it, basically. It was a fit-out of the whole school, five floors. It was a massive project.
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And I was like, oh, wow. So I got the project right away through just this random connection. And I immediately hired an intern to help me with Revit and all that. And that's how we went there. That's incredible. It's really incredible. It was just like that moment that I've pushed myself to take the train for an hour. Just, yeah.
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It really is inspiring when you hear that story and something else I want to share that's inspiring are three partners we have on this podcast. Every designer knows the success of a space depends on what actually shows up on site and that's where diode LED comes in.
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Real solutions for real projects, no matter the scale. Learn more about what's happening in Reno, Nevada at diodeLED.com. Another company I want to tell you about is Kelvix. They don't just move fast, they move with purpose. Helping the design world turn ambitious ideas into seamless, buildable realities.
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The Kelvix team works at the pace of your project, delivering tailored solutions backed by people who know how quality, timing, and precision elevate the final outcome. In every spec and every collaboration, Kelvix proves lighting is more than illumination. Lighting protects design intent, sharpens the details that matter, and brings spaces to life with clarity and ease. See what's coming from breakthrough projects to standout projects at Kelvix.com or on their social channels.
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Another company that I respect and want to tell you about is Ledflex. Every designer knows that when light is done right, it disappears into the experience. And that's exactly where Ledflex starts. At Ledflex, linear light is designed to do more than illuminate. It's engineered to shape how spaces are experienced.
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Rooted in British manufacturing, Leadflex works alongside lighting designers, interior designers, and architects worldwide, supporting projects where detail, precision, and execution matter. They're not just a manufacturer. They're a technical partner, providing bespoke solutions, rapid prototyping, commissioning, and long-term support from early concept through final handover. If light is integral to your architecture, choose a partner who stays with a project.
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Learn more at ledflexgroup.com. A one-hour train ride is nothing when you look back at everything that you've done, right? There was a lot of intentionality leading up to that moment. You are particular. You're particular about this brand that you've built. It's not your name. It's not even anything with maybe the notion of what you do. It's the seed.
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Where does the seed come from? How does it grow? Right. And, and how much time did you spend really becoming comfortable with what that was? So when you got to that moment of that presentation, it felt like you'd been doing it just as another one of your projects.
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I think it's an ongoing project, so we're still evolving the brand of Seed and working on it. But from the very beginning, it's like a missing link or something in lighting design studios that...
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Generally, they're not very branded. They're like a support consultant. They're all architects and designers with background in design and they're creative people, but they don't brand themselves as such much because also you don't want to compete with your clients that are architects. I don't know where that comes from, but I wanted us to be interested
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a certain way like the the branding the website the logo all that so first thing i did when i after i rented the desk was i contacted one of my friends that she's a she's a brilliant graphic designer and i asked her to design our logo and she gave me a quote and was way out of my budget
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And I remember I was like, I have to design myself. So I designed the logo, I designed the brand, the website, everything myself. But I had time, but I was working
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hours a day because I was my, now that I look back, my motivation and grit was so, so high. I just like, that's the only thing I wanted to do to design this studio. And, um, yeah. And I, when I had that, that, um,
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The Lunch and Learn presentation. I already had a lot of booklets designed, a lot of presentations. But that's also because I enjoy a lot doing graphic design and presentation. And the contents were all because I was teaching for a while. So I had the educational content that I used. You were betting on yourself.
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But you've bet on yourself your entire life. Do you think you could not bet on yourself? I mean, how do you, how do you teach yourself to bet on yourself versus not bet on yourself? Where does that come from? I still, if you just now take me and take away all the things I've done and put me somewhere else in the world.
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I would be rebuilding it from scratch and trusting myself. I think I was always like this, but because there is a feeling that if you don't trust yourself, then no one else will. And if you want to convince others to believe in you, you have to first believe in you.
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And that's what I always did. I always believed that that's kind of the risk that you can call a risk taker, but I don't really think it's a risk. I think it's just trusting yourself. What turned the dial to get you started with the luck to the opportunity? Yeah, the interesting thing now, it even surprised myself.
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on a daily basis, like all of us, is that, for example, clients that I was looking for, was going after for a lot of, many years, just sending emails, doing lunch and taking them to lunch.
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sending a note to remind them we have a newsletter, all those things. And there are some clients that, they have been my dream clientele to work with, and they just contact you without you even going after them because they now know Seed and they know our work.
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which is, that's fascinating to me and still fascinating to all of us as a team that we are now in that place that we don't really need to go market ourselves too much to people. They have heard of our name, so it's interesting. But I think the point that changed luck into...
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opportunity was learning the being intentional so the intentionality like I then I start to systematize our our studio with a coach and then I knew how many people I'm contacting this this week what are their responses when is the next time I reach out to them so it became it turned into a system of our studio too
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to do business development so that's that's switch before was friends of a friends that heard of you and you just try your your luck what was it like when you you knew you were taking on risks that would affect others because you were employing them now
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That was not fun. It's because when you take risks on your own, you move a city, it's just you. You have to figure it out. But then when your decisions affect other people, then those risks are not as fun to take, nor necessarily, they become stressful. But I think transparency really helped me in a way that
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Everyone in our studio knows what's going on, so I don't make a decision alone. I try to involve others in my decisions. I still need to do the risk because at the end of the day, it's all me.
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But having, I think bringing in some support, the support of people that work with you and you all share the same intention of building the studio, living a better life as a designer, creating something together, it really helped with those kind of decisions as a business because now I don't think we do something that's not...
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Well, I want to say this. I don't know if it's true, but most of the decisions we make as a business, all the people that work in the business agree with.
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because we run it by everyone and then if someone's not on board with it, we try to convince them and explain why this is being done a certain way. And I think because, coming back to your question of if I struggled with starting to work in architecture studios, but I had a lot of my own opinions,
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is that I hoped that they involve me as well, like give me a voice to make a decision. It didn't happen all the time, but when it happened, it felt really good. So I wanted to keep that culture in our seats. As a leader, you have to make certain decisions on your own, but it sounds like you enjoy making them with your team too.
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What guides you in those moments? How to get who involved? Entrepreneurship and owning a business is very lonely.
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It's just you and the whole world of decisions and so many people depend on your decision. So it's difficult. But I think what guides me to who to go to or how to bring up that idea to the team, it also comes from the trust because I trust people are going to...
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help me make a good decision as a team. So I think what runs our business the way it is, is that we trust each other a lot. Trust is super important. And someone you can trust is Target USA. I want to take a moment to recognize a team that understands what you and every designer already knows. Light isn't a fixture, it's the soul of a space.
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For almost a century, Targetti has shaped how people experience architecture, using precision optics, performance, and that unmistakable sense of Italian design to elevate every moment a space offers. Because light isn't just seen, it's felt. It drives emotion, guides the eye, and transforms intention into atmosphere.
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For Targeti, light isn't simply the medium. It's the identity. It's the craft, the legacy, and the commitment behind every solution they create. Experience it for yourself. Visit targetiusa.com. The team that we have right now is, it's exceptional because it's,
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we're all very like-minded in a way that the vision, our vision's aligned and that's why we're there. Not because of the skills or different other things. It's all mainly the visions and they're having people that came to see and left or it didn't work out because we didn't have the same vision. So I think if everyone agrees on the big picture, then it's more fluid to make decisions together and
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is that something you hire into or do you bring people in and teach them that? I think both things. So we hire people that we think they are a good match or good fit to the team that we're making. But we also do a lot of training in the...
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And for our training to bring people on board with the vision that is there right now. So I think we hire people that believe in the vision. And when they come and we train them into it. So we have a very extensive onboarding process.
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process. So when people start, they have to create their own vision, they have to write it, they have to read our intents, and then we constantly meet about it. We take trips as a team together to just do vision planning and talk about
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Where each of us are going, because I know, I mean, I don't expect every single person in our team to just stay with Seed forever. But I think the duration of time, each of us are staying with that studio, needs to be something that we're all aligned on and we all enjoy and believe in. Do you feel like that vision that people come into and is very much a part of the team
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is obvious in every project you do at this point? I know because of the feedback I get. I mean, there's one thing that we have our own way of doing things in the studio and everyone, and it's a systematized project
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process so that is happy it's gonna happen the way we are expecting it to but then also how i think how i know is more of feedback i get from our clients like how we are perceived from outside because when you're in it you don't really see that much anymore it's basically like just doing the things you think they're right but um looking at
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from outside to our studio, that's what I've been hearing as a feedback, which is very nice and it's amazing to hear that you were actually doing something that you thought you were doing. So we're not going sideways, but it's also a struggle because sometimes we get busy when you're too busy.
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you become less intentional about certain ways of doing things. So we're constantly very careful to not go there. But, yeah. There seems to be an incredible amount of mindfulness around what you've built, how you've built it, and then sharing that with your team to the extent that everybody shows up in their own way of being accountable around it.
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When you look at the future of what you want the seed to be, your life is one big story and one big project. So how do you start to decide it's good for now? Or do you just keep going? Oh, you mean to evolve it? Yeah. To a different thing? Yeah.
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I mean, you mentioned multidisciplinary. Obviously, you can always do more project work. You can take bigger fees. But that was never really, it seems to be your motivator. So I'm curious, what motivates you now?
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I don't think I will ever get to a point that I say it's good for now. But that doesn't mean that I want to get bigger or, you know, do more things. It's just to make what we're doing more intentional, better and more purposeful.
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And there's never an end to it because I think all of us, when we work in the same, with the same process, same methods, on and on, it would be, it gets boring and it gets, you realize it. She's like speaking straight from the heart. What's your problem, dude?
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Oh my god, this has been good for now because normally they hunk a lot here on Canal Street. I know. My vision is the big picture vision is not an end goal of let's get to this point. Point A is basically let's go towards it and then other things happen naturally. And since it's no longer just myself deciding of...
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what's what is the what's the main purpose now there's multiple people so they bring in their ideas too so that keeps growing so because as an example is like recently pretty recently in the past year we started to
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to take on an initiative of sustainability in lighting because of the new person that joined our team. She's an expert in that and that's her passion. So she suggested that one thing that's good about our studio is that we are very accepting of new ideas. So we embraced it and we want to,
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pursue it so then that is an ad addition to something that in my vision wasn't there I didn't think about it that much but now it's a part it's an important part or like product design or all these other things come from other people's interest and visions and we combined as a whole as a whole as a team for seek to to evolve that way
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Being accepting and bringing all these new ideas in makes you dynamic. That makes you interesting. It gives you your competitive edge. If we look at it strictly from the world of business for a second, you've obviously got to go out and you've got to get work. I would imagine that there's an opportunity to get repeat business because people probably enjoy working with you as people, but then they see the output as well. When you look at new clients, new opportunities that come to the seed right now.
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How much is it driven by who you are and how you think versus who you are as people and working with versus the product in your portfolio? What do you think people focus on most or are attracted to first? Clients that we have worked with and they come back to us. They come back because of who we are.
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as a team, but the new projects that we're going to pursue, they don't know us, so it's all about the portfolio. Portfolio and how we represent ourselves as a brand, that's a big challenge because sometimes you want that new RFI, the new project that is coming, the RFP that comes, and you need an interview, you want them to know you, but you don't have the opportunity, so all they see is a booklet of your portfolio and your fee.
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So we don't have the opportunity. But then so many of our clients that are coming back, I think all of them come back because of who we are. And also we have this very tiny stream of clients that know us because of who we are through our branding efforts outside of non-project related marketing and networking.
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uh cash is king no creativity is king yes right uh everybody's creative everybody has an opportunity to be creative some people are more driven to to let that get them out of bed every day for you it's this creative journey of a life project do you accept you are a lighting designer at this point oh yeah very much i i'm a live designer i'm only a lighting designer
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And now I encourage people to become a lighting designer because I feel that it's amazing. So where is architecture in your mind and in projects and in conversations now? Architecture for me was a base that I, it was something I studied and it turned into a mindset for me in the way of, um, the way I look at the world, the
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the way that I interact with a city and environment and the intention of creating spaces. Lighting is now my skill. It's my most, it's my tool. So yeah, architecture is basically still part of my life.
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But now I think that my toolbox is just lighting. There's a lot of lighting in it, though. You've crafted your own experience and expertise in architectural lighting. Is there anything that you feel like you see across the architectural lighting community or industry that it believes that you don't?
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Lightning being invisible can work without power? Can I move it? No, you can't. It's like a column, a beam. It's something important for the building. So that's always the thing. But some people, and I have started to realize that some people
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are reacting better to that. Because we also, we bring proof of our ideas with a lot of precedence, a lot of renderings, and a lot of convincing. When I feel most alive, when I am in a deep creative conversation with people,
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someone else that is either my teammate or my client or just a friend. But I like to, I think the back and forth of ideas between people is something that makes, gives me energy to keep going. And that's when I feel most satisfied with what I do. It's just a moment that I'm like, that's why I'm doing this. It makes me very happy.
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Because there is a feeling that if you don't trust yourself, then no one else will. Golsana hasn't left anything behind. What she's done is bet on herself her entire life. And that instinct has shaped everything, including her very successful lighting design practice in New York City today.
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Entrepreneurship and owning business is very lonely. The way you pick your clients, you pick your projects, it's now more meaningful into what that brings to your life and how you can contribute to it rather than how famous that's gonna make you. Starting your own design business teaches you a lot about yourself and what are the things to care about most and what are the things that didn't matter
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It was a massive project. And I was like, oh wow. So I got the project right away through just this random connection and I immediately hired an intern. You were betting on yourself, but you've bet on yourself your entire life. Because there is a feeling of if you don't trust yourself, then no one else will. The big picture vision is not an end goal of, let's get to this point. Point A is basically, let's go towards
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Before we jump in, I want to thank five companies that show up for this community. Mark, Diode LED, Kelvix, Leadflex, and Targeti USA. Because this show exists thanks to their belief in designers and the way they work every single day. Before we get into this episode, I want to talk about one of those companies because it's worth your attention.
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Here's the truth. Nobody gets into design to manage logistics. You got into this to shape how people experience space. But somewhere between the concept and the installation, the friction creeps in. The timelines, the specs, the supply chain. That's the problem the team at Mark is actually solving. Their architectural linear portfolio is built to disappear into your intent. Restrained when the space calls for it. Bold when the moment demands it.
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always serving the architecture, never competing with it. And behind it, the kind of specification simplicity and manufacturing scale that lets you stay focused on the work that matters. Get back to designing.
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You have lived in many countries. You've lived in seven different cities. Now you're building a company out of the ground in New York City, your own boutique lighting design studio. What's one thing that you thought you had figured out that you've now realized is completely wrong? The main thing that I was...
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very much committed to and believed when I was younger, right out of school, was the definition of what's success and happiness in the way that I thought big names, impactful buildings, large projects. That was the definition of success for me. And then as I evolved in my career, now for me the smallest,
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collaboration, a conversation with someone that is like-minded and just sparks of ideas is for me happiness and when I feel mostly fulfilled in my career. So then you let go of all those learnings from before and
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the way you pick your clients, they pick your, pick your projects. It's now more meaningful into what, what that brings to your life and how you can contribute to it rather than how famous that's going to make you. What do you feel like that realization turned itself upside down for you? I think it was after starting my, my own business, which, which was a journey. It's been more than seven years and I,
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I feel like entrepreneurship or starting your own design business teaches you a lot about yourself and what are the things to care about most and what are the things that didn't matter or...
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they were not as essential for you or for your clients or for the world in general, but you were taught to believe those. So for me, the realization of what makes me feel happier and feel successful happens throughout the course of running my business.
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When you look back on what may have taught you what success looked like, who was teaching that to you or where were you absorbing that opinion or impression from? So I think the world of design and architecture and technology,
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There is a number of factors that you think these are. If I checkbox these items, then I'm a successful person. But then when you do that, and then at the same time, inside yourself, you feel like, what really makes me happy? Or what is the moment that I felt the happiest? And when was the time that my creativity found a way to...
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to speak when I had a voice. And, um, those are times that you start to, to look back and see, is this what I really wanted to be published in, in a magazine or to win an award? Or the honest answer is when you had, um,
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A very successful brainstorm with an architect that you like to work with. Come out of that meeting, that project is never going to be built. But that felt more successful than having finished projects that have names, big names. If you think about what that emotion is, can you describe it?
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I have that good feeling of accomplishment when I am surrounded by people that are creative and are interesting to talk to and we share conversations and ideas. Whether it's a smallest thing, it's a piece of furniture or a light fixture or a bigger project. But the feeling, I would say a feeling of happiness and feeling of
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the answer to the why of why are you doing this and what's the meaning for it. So it's, yeah, I think that's all I can say. It's like you feeling that you got your answer.
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You've now started to grow in ways you also never knew existed because you're a true entrepreneur and you're building a business. You mentioned how you've kind of proven yourself wrong once already. Is there anything that you feel is a very important truth to you at this point that others probably or might not agree with?
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I am not sure if others wouldn't agree with, but something that is a challenge. And it's also, it's something that I'm mindfully being careful of following the path that staying authentic and keep my vision and all the things I believed. What was it like to set the foundation for this unknown process of entrepreneurship for you in building a brand?
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Yeah, I was curious about these things. I was just recently telling my coworkers at work, in my trips from Cyprus to Tehran, I would stop in Istanbul and go buy a lot of clothes in the sales and come home and set up a pop-up of styles. I would just invite anyone I knew, they would come and buy those clothes.
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What was the curiosity there? I mean, was it like you were scamming the system, beating the system? You knew somebody needed something and you wanted to help them get it? What do you think drove you in these early years? That's a good question. Each of those things are a little different, but at the same time, I wanted to... I think as a kid, when you...
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do these things that you want independence and you want to stand out for me was that when I was 13, I wanted to
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be the 13 year old that actually makes money and has a vision and is, you know, I was always looking at my future as something bright and nice for myself. I had a lot of hopes. So then it was like little steps to build that. And if you want to be a photographer, I always thought I wanted to be an artist.
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And so all of these things, all of the creative paths I took was contributing to that big vision for me. What did it feel like to go work for someone when you had this impulse of, was there this clash inside of you of, I can't do my project because I'm doing someone else's project? Yeah.
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And no, but it was, I wouldn't say it was a clash because I always, somehow I knew I am in a path. So I didn't want to go beyond where I was. I wanted to take the right steps because it was very thoughtful of, okay, I need to do this many years of work here, this many years in my mind. I had that clear, but also...
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it was moments, there were moments that were not comfortable because your employer asks you to do something that you don't think it's right. Like that design decision could have been better and you're inexperienced. So you question that in your mind, but I never actually reflected that much in work. So I didn't have a clash with my employers ever, but I think that actually helped me in a way that because I was...
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I very much acted as a person with grit and wanting to make things better. My jobs were also kind of my projects in a way that everywhere I went and worked was it was always bringing up ideas how to make that place better. How can we do things more efficient, better? How do we can add to our creativity? How we can contribute to that?
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And luckily, that was always appreciated. I was lucky because the people I worked with were open people. I can imagine that can be a clash if someone is investing too much in your idea. Your first professional experience was in Barcelona.
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My very first professional experience was in Tehran. So I went to Cyprus, studied and came back to Tehran. And I started to work in an architecture studio. I did an internship and then I worked there for, worked in another studio for about a year. And then I went to Madrid. So I had a year gap between my bachelor's and master's degrees.
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And there's this interesting moment, right? Architecture is what you're fascinated with. Lighting shows up. How does lighting show up? And then how does it suck you in?
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It showed up pretty accidental. So I wanted to go to Spain. I want, that was my plan to learn Spanish, to be with my cousins that were there and study. And I wanted to go to Europe and I want to continue my architecture studies. But I found this master's degree. Actually, my cousin found it for me. She was like, how about this one? And it was, uh, architectural lighting design. And I was just curious to explore it. The last, um,
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course I took at architecture school in my last semester was daylight daylighting so I was I had a very fresh in my mind and I was oh yeah that's great it's uh it's a sign I have to go like study this to get better and then study more architecture later on so I went to school in Spain and
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It was honestly all throughout my studies and even my internship. That was just an experiment before getting back to architecture. And then I figured that it took me some years to fully... I feel it gave me more tools and more ability to transform spaces. And it's just fascinating.
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Having this immaterial with no surfaces, you're in a space, they give you a space and regardless of materiality or formal shape or anything, you can fully transform it.
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So I'm now much more interested in perception of the world and spaces than actually. So that kind of makes lighting more interesting for me than architecture because the perception just happens with light.
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You move to the West Coast and there's an opportunity there for you. But then you end up in New York City. What does that time look like for you in terms of trusting your process, but knowing your goal is to do this all on your own? So going to the West Coast and Barrickley in San Francisco was a move I...
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It was by choice, but at the same time it was something that I had to do at that moment in my life. And I went for it with a lot of motivation and grit to fully adapt to a new continent and new culture.
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And it wasn't as fluid as I thought it will be, but something that started to go very exciting was the opportunities I found in my career in the U.S., in the West, in San Francisco, places I worked were very inspiring.
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I felt like I've been growing and the growth was more visible. I guess it's, um, it's cultural. So hierarchies are more blurry in, in the U S than in Europe. So you actually can show yourself and there's a lot of opportunities for emerging designers. So I just start to feel that as something that I, I actually want to work more towards and.
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So I did some experiments in working in an architecture studio, but be an in-house lighting designer, still between architecture and lighting challenges in that time. But I started to do a lot of art projects when I went to Svescos. So I kept that experience.
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I guess part of my vision or what I want to do as part of like, this is me and I started a website for myself and then I'm like an artist, but I also do lighting design, but I also do architecture, kind of that thing. But kept going, working in the lighting design studios that I was working and keep growing and learning, learning my skills and learning.
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And it was a very interesting time because I learned a lot from the places I worked in San Francisco. Because it was a different type of lighting design that I was not used to. I was used to public urban lighting in Spain. And then this was more focused into commercial public projects with all the U.S. regulations that I didn't know about. Yeah.
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Coming to New York was a whole different story is probably an understatement. There's no city like it in the world. It's home for everyone, no matter what you believe, no matter where you come from. It's a melting pot. It's incredibly diverse. Tough, but loving and welcoming. What was it like to feel that tough love, yet welcome with open arms to New York City when you got here? It's been honestly an amazing journey being in New York.
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I, as everyone here, or all New Yorkers have this love-hate with the city, my love has been always more, although it's tough to be here. It's really tough. But there is this energy in New York that I felt it from the moment I moved here and started my job at an architecture studio, actually.
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just the vibrancy the it's the flow of ideas and different people from all over the world it just suddenly hit me like the first month i was like this is where i have to be and stay because nobody is from here and everybody's from here and then and that's that's that's for the first time after being um um
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Leaving home after many years, I felt like this is home because you build your, because you're going to build a home yourself. It's not something fixed that you're going to just fit into. It's just the most flexible, inspiring place ever. At that point, you'd lived in six cities. Do you remember the first client you got and what it felt like?
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Yeah, actually I do remember because it was very unexpected. I started Seed without a project. I didn't have a freelance gig or nothing. I was just there spending from my savings with a vision. And that was all I had. And a laptop. And a world of experience. And a world of experience. And the whole New York City in front of me that is competitive. Yeah.
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but I knew some people. So I think I started thinking about methods of marketing, which is tough for a designer that has never done it. But I realized there's one thing that I'm good at, which is,
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connecting with people and making friends. So I started to go to every architecture event that is being held in the city, be it in a university or AIA or all that. And there was this one event I was, I registered to and was in Upper West Side. I lived in Brooklyn.
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It was 7 p.m. I was so tired. And then I was like, should I go? I was just contemplating. I was like, yeah, I'm going to go. So I sat on a train for an hour and
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to Upper West Side. It was a women's, AIA women events for recognition of the fellow AIA people that the architects. So I went there, did talk to people and made a friend that was not the head of any architecture studio, but
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She was just the only person I felt connected to because I talked to everyone, but she was very receptive. And she scheduled a lunch and learned for me the day after at their office.
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It was a big office, actually, a large architecture office. So I went there, and it was like lunch and learn. I have to buy food for 50 people. But I did it. How many people did you buy lunch for? I think there were maybe 36 people. That's awesome.
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But I had this presentation ready because I've been working on these marketing materials. So I presented. They all loved it. The principal of that studio asked to meet with me right away. And he gave me a project, which was the Columbia Art School. They were remodeling it, basically. It was a fit-out of the whole school, five floors. It was a massive project.
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And I was like, oh, wow. So I got the project right away through just this random connection. And I immediately hired an intern to help me with Revit and all that. And that's how we went there. That's incredible. It's really incredible. It was just like that moment that I've pushed myself to take the train for an hour. Just, yeah.
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It really is inspiring when you hear that story and something else I want to share that's inspiring are three partners we have on this podcast. Every designer knows the success of a space depends on what actually shows up on site and that's where diode LED comes in.
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Real solutions for real projects, no matter the scale. Learn more about what's happening in Reno, Nevada at diodeLED.com. Another company I want to tell you about is Kelvix. They don't just move fast, they move with purpose. Helping the design world turn ambitious ideas into seamless, buildable realities.
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The Kelvix team works at the pace of your project, delivering tailored solutions backed by people who know how quality, timing, and precision elevate the final outcome. In every spec and every collaboration, Kelvix proves lighting is more than illumination. Lighting protects design intent, sharpens the details that matter, and brings spaces to life with clarity and ease. See what's coming from breakthrough projects to standout projects at Kelvix.com or on their social channels.
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Another company that I respect and want to tell you about is Ledflex. Every designer knows that when light is done right, it disappears into the experience. And that's exactly where Ledflex starts. At Ledflex, linear light is designed to do more than illuminate. It's engineered to shape how spaces are experienced.
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Rooted in British manufacturing, Leadflex works alongside lighting designers, interior designers, and architects worldwide, supporting projects where detail, precision, and execution matter. They're not just a manufacturer. They're a technical partner, providing bespoke solutions, rapid prototyping, commissioning, and long-term support from early concept through final handover. If light is integral to your architecture, choose a partner who stays with a project.
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Learn more at ledflexgroup.com. A one-hour train ride is nothing when you look back at everything that you've done, right? There was a lot of intentionality leading up to that moment. You are particular. You're particular about this brand that you've built. It's not your name. It's not even anything with maybe the notion of what you do. It's the seed.
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Where does the seed come from? How does it grow? Right. And, and how much time did you spend really becoming comfortable with what that was? So when you got to that moment of that presentation, it felt like you'd been doing it just as another one of your projects.
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I think it's an ongoing project, so we're still evolving the brand of Seed and working on it. But from the very beginning, it's like a missing link or something in lighting design studios that...
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Generally, they're not very branded. They're like a support consultant. They're all architects and designers with background in design and they're creative people, but they don't brand themselves as such much because also you don't want to compete with your clients that are architects. I don't know where that comes from, but I wanted us to be interested
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a certain way like the the branding the website the logo all that so first thing i did when i after i rented the desk was i contacted one of my friends that she's a she's a brilliant graphic designer and i asked her to design our logo and she gave me a quote and was way out of my budget
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And I remember I was like, I have to design myself. So I designed the logo, I designed the brand, the website, everything myself. But I had time, but I was working
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hours a day because I was my, now that I look back, my motivation and grit was so, so high. I just like, that's the only thing I wanted to do to design this studio. And, um, yeah. And I, when I had that, that, um,
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The Lunch and Learn presentation. I already had a lot of booklets designed, a lot of presentations. But that's also because I enjoy a lot doing graphic design and presentation. And the contents were all because I was teaching for a while. So I had the educational content that I used. You were betting on yourself.
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But you've bet on yourself your entire life. Do you think you could not bet on yourself? I mean, how do you, how do you teach yourself to bet on yourself versus not bet on yourself? Where does that come from? I still, if you just now take me and take away all the things I've done and put me somewhere else in the world.
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I would be rebuilding it from scratch and trusting myself. I think I was always like this, but because there is a feeling that if you don't trust yourself, then no one else will. And if you want to convince others to believe in you, you have to first believe in you.
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And that's what I always did. I always believed that that's kind of the risk that you can call a risk taker, but I don't really think it's a risk. I think it's just trusting yourself. What turned the dial to get you started with the luck to the opportunity? Yeah, the interesting thing now, it even surprised myself.
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on a daily basis, like all of us, is that, for example, clients that I was looking for, was going after for a lot of, many years, just sending emails, doing lunch and taking them to lunch.
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sending a note to remind them we have a newsletter, all those things. And there are some clients that, they have been my dream clientele to work with, and they just contact you without you even going after them because they now know Seed and they know our work.
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which is, that's fascinating to me and still fascinating to all of us as a team that we are now in that place that we don't really need to go market ourselves too much to people. They have heard of our name, so it's interesting. But I think the point that changed luck into...
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opportunity was learning the being intentional so the intentionality like I then I start to systematize our our studio with a coach and then I knew how many people I'm contacting this this week what are their responses when is the next time I reach out to them so it became it turned into a system of our studio too
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to do business development so that's that's switch before was friends of a friends that heard of you and you just try your your luck what was it like when you you knew you were taking on risks that would affect others because you were employing them now
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That was not fun. It's because when you take risks on your own, you move a city, it's just you. You have to figure it out. But then when your decisions affect other people, then those risks are not as fun to take, nor necessarily, they become stressful. But I think transparency really helped me in a way that
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Everyone in our studio knows what's going on, so I don't make a decision alone. I try to involve others in my decisions. I still need to do the risk because at the end of the day, it's all me.
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But having, I think bringing in some support, the support of people that work with you and you all share the same intention of building the studio, living a better life as a designer, creating something together, it really helped with those kind of decisions as a business because now I don't think we do something that's not...
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Well, I want to say this. I don't know if it's true, but most of the decisions we make as a business, all the people that work in the business agree with.
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because we run it by everyone and then if someone's not on board with it, we try to convince them and explain why this is being done a certain way. And I think because, coming back to your question of if I struggled with starting to work in architecture studios, but I had a lot of my own opinions,
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is that I hoped that they involve me as well, like give me a voice to make a decision. It didn't happen all the time, but when it happened, it felt really good. So I wanted to keep that culture in our seats. As a leader, you have to make certain decisions on your own, but it sounds like you enjoy making them with your team too.
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What guides you in those moments? How to get who involved? Entrepreneurship and owning a business is very lonely.
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It's just you and the whole world of decisions and so many people depend on your decision. So it's difficult. But I think what guides me to who to go to or how to bring up that idea to the team, it also comes from the trust because I trust people are going to...
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help me make a good decision as a team. So I think what runs our business the way it is, is that we trust each other a lot. Trust is super important. And someone you can trust is Target USA. I want to take a moment to recognize a team that understands what you and every designer already knows. Light isn't a fixture, it's the soul of a space.
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For almost a century, Targetti has shaped how people experience architecture, using precision optics, performance, and that unmistakable sense of Italian design to elevate every moment a space offers. Because light isn't just seen, it's felt. It drives emotion, guides the eye, and transforms intention into atmosphere.
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For Targeti, light isn't simply the medium. It's the identity. It's the craft, the legacy, and the commitment behind every solution they create. Experience it for yourself. Visit targetiusa.com. The team that we have right now is, it's exceptional because it's,
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we're all very like-minded in a way that the vision, our vision's aligned and that's why we're there. Not because of the skills or different other things. It's all mainly the visions and they're having people that came to see and left or it didn't work out because we didn't have the same vision. So I think if everyone agrees on the big picture, then it's more fluid to make decisions together and
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is that something you hire into or do you bring people in and teach them that? I think both things. So we hire people that we think they are a good match or good fit to the team that we're making. But we also do a lot of training in the...
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And for our training to bring people on board with the vision that is there right now. So I think we hire people that believe in the vision. And when they come and we train them into it. So we have a very extensive onboarding process.
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process. So when people start, they have to create their own vision, they have to write it, they have to read our intents, and then we constantly meet about it. We take trips as a team together to just do vision planning and talk about
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Where each of us are going, because I know, I mean, I don't expect every single person in our team to just stay with Seed forever. But I think the duration of time, each of us are staying with that studio, needs to be something that we're all aligned on and we all enjoy and believe in. Do you feel like that vision that people come into and is very much a part of the team
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is obvious in every project you do at this point? I know because of the feedback I get. I mean, there's one thing that we have our own way of doing things in the studio and everyone, and it's a systematized project
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process so that is happy it's gonna happen the way we are expecting it to but then also how i think how i know is more of feedback i get from our clients like how we are perceived from outside because when you're in it you don't really see that much anymore it's basically like just doing the things you think they're right but um looking at
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from outside to our studio, that's what I've been hearing as a feedback, which is very nice and it's amazing to hear that you were actually doing something that you thought you were doing. So we're not going sideways, but it's also a struggle because sometimes we get busy when you're too busy.
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you become less intentional about certain ways of doing things. So we're constantly very careful to not go there. But, yeah. There seems to be an incredible amount of mindfulness around what you've built, how you've built it, and then sharing that with your team to the extent that everybody shows up in their own way of being accountable around it.
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When you look at the future of what you want the seed to be, your life is one big story and one big project. So how do you start to decide it's good for now? Or do you just keep going? Oh, you mean to evolve it? Yeah. To a different thing? Yeah.
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I mean, you mentioned multidisciplinary. Obviously, you can always do more project work. You can take bigger fees. But that was never really, it seems to be your motivator. So I'm curious, what motivates you now?
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I don't think I will ever get to a point that I say it's good for now. But that doesn't mean that I want to get bigger or, you know, do more things. It's just to make what we're doing more intentional, better and more purposeful.
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And there's never an end to it because I think all of us, when we work in the same, with the same process, same methods, on and on, it would be, it gets boring and it gets, you realize it. She's like speaking straight from the heart. What's your problem, dude?
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Oh my god, this has been good for now because normally they hunk a lot here on Canal Street. I know. My vision is the big picture vision is not an end goal of let's get to this point. Point A is basically let's go towards it and then other things happen naturally. And since it's no longer just myself deciding of...
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what's what is the what's the main purpose now there's multiple people so they bring in their ideas too so that keeps growing so because as an example is like recently pretty recently in the past year we started to
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to take on an initiative of sustainability in lighting because of the new person that joined our team. She's an expert in that and that's her passion. So she suggested that one thing that's good about our studio is that we are very accepting of new ideas. So we embraced it and we want to,
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pursue it so then that is an ad addition to something that in my vision wasn't there I didn't think about it that much but now it's a part it's an important part or like product design or all these other things come from other people's interest and visions and we combined as a whole as a whole as a team for seek to to evolve that way
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Being accepting and bringing all these new ideas in makes you dynamic. That makes you interesting. It gives you your competitive edge. If we look at it strictly from the world of business for a second, you've obviously got to go out and you've got to get work. I would imagine that there's an opportunity to get repeat business because people probably enjoy working with you as people, but then they see the output as well. When you look at new clients, new opportunities that come to the seed right now.
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How much is it driven by who you are and how you think versus who you are as people and working with versus the product in your portfolio? What do you think people focus on most or are attracted to first? Clients that we have worked with and they come back to us. They come back because of who we are.
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as a team, but the new projects that we're going to pursue, they don't know us, so it's all about the portfolio. Portfolio and how we represent ourselves as a brand, that's a big challenge because sometimes you want that new RFI, the new project that is coming, the RFP that comes, and you need an interview, you want them to know you, but you don't have the opportunity, so all they see is a booklet of your portfolio and your fee.
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So we don't have the opportunity. But then so many of our clients that are coming back, I think all of them come back because of who we are. And also we have this very tiny stream of clients that know us because of who we are through our branding efforts outside of non-project related marketing and networking.
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uh cash is king no creativity is king yes right uh everybody's creative everybody has an opportunity to be creative some people are more driven to to let that get them out of bed every day for you it's this creative journey of a life project do you accept you are a lighting designer at this point oh yeah very much i i'm a live designer i'm only a lighting designer
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And now I encourage people to become a lighting designer because I feel that it's amazing. So where is architecture in your mind and in projects and in conversations now? Architecture for me was a base that I, it was something I studied and it turned into a mindset for me in the way of, um, the way I look at the world, the
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the way that I interact with a city and environment and the intention of creating spaces. Lighting is now my skill. It's my most, it's my tool. So yeah, architecture is basically still part of my life.
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But now I think that my toolbox is just lighting. There's a lot of lighting in it, though. You've crafted your own experience and expertise in architectural lighting. Is there anything that you feel like you see across the architectural lighting community or industry that it believes that you don't?
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Lightning being invisible can work without power? Can I move it? No, you can't. It's like a column, a beam. It's something important for the building. So that's always the thing. But some people, and I have started to realize that some people
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are reacting better to that. Because we also, we bring proof of our ideas with a lot of precedence, a lot of renderings, and a lot of convincing. When I feel most alive, when I am in a deep creative conversation with people,
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someone else that is either my teammate or my client or just a friend. But I like to, I think the back and forth of ideas between people is something that makes, gives me energy to keep going. And that's when I feel most satisfied with what I do. It's just a moment that I'm like, that's why I'm doing this. It makes me very happy.
