The Third Win: A New Business Model for Lighting Design

Welcome to the Brick & Wonder podcast, where we delve into the art and science of collaboration within the built environment industry. Hosted by Drew Lang, founder of Brick & Wonder, this podcast explores the stories and strategies behind successful collaborations that drive innovation and shape the built world around us.

In this episode we spoke with two people who came together in a successful and enduring business consulting engagement. Matt Schroeder is the co-founder and CEO of The Cosine, an architectural lighting and procurement company. Everett Hollander is a partner at Billy Clark Creative Management, a strategy and talent advisor to creative companies in the built environment industry. 

My baseline is a win win win. I want to benefit, I want my collaborator to benefit and I want the net result for the world to be greater than the sum of its parts. So a third win.

– Everett Hollander

…the key metric to look out for is how quickly you can come to a shared vision. Both sides explain how they envision the mission. And usually, if you can quickly come to a consensus on how you envision the project turning out, the collaboration will be successful. 

– Matt Schroeder

I understood a few things about The Cosine. The first is that they were radically approaching their business and the industry that they worked in differently. As a result, they were very open minded and eager to be challenged by someone like me. Secondly, I understood how quickly they were going to grow if they were to succeed, and I believed in their success.

– Everett Hollander

What’s unique about The Cosine is that we are not an hourly or project based service company. We make all of our revenue via procurement. So what we’re doing is specializing in the procurement and distribution of lighting, with the added bonus of having a lighting consultant on your projects.

– Matt Schroeder

Photographs above from The Cosine.