By Douglas Weinstein
Photos: Maxicon USA
In the world of technology design and system integration, there are a select group of firms that stand out in the field due to their dependable designs, sound business practices, and consummate after-sales customer service. And then there is Maxicon.
Headquartered in Miami with projects across the globe, Maxicon USA is more than a technology integrator. The firm is dedicated to one purpose: empowering architects and interior designers by seamlessly weaving technology into the fabric of their designs, always with a reverence for aesthetics and the client’s lifestyle.
I recently sat down with Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Office Andres Klein to talk about Maxicon’s rich history, global reach, and their respect for, and allegiance to, the designers’ vision above all else.
Doug: Talk about the founding of the company and how the three partners got together and how you’ve evolved the business.
Andres: The three of us, myself, Ilan Weinstein (CEO), and Samuel Naierman, (CTO), were born in Venezuela, and studied together in the same school. And, if I have to put a starting point of where Maxicon really started, it was when Sammy, who is our chief engineer, and I were 14 years old.
Our story began with curiosity and creativity. As teenagers in Venezuela, we experimented with media, video and stage technology. What started as youthful innovation evolved into a lifelong passion for merging design with technology.
At 14 years old we created a private TV channel for our school, and we had no idea what we needed to do. So, we went to educate ourselves, bought coaxial cable splitters, ran coaxial cable, you know, through three different floors in our school, had three different TVs, and so we now had actual screens at different places in our school and we were showing our videos to everyone. After that, we evolved into becoming the guys controlling the lighting and the audio for the theater group. We were the technology guys at that particular moment.
Then we graduated and Sammy goes into engineering and I studied social communications.
By the time we relocated to Miami in 1999, we were ready to channel that passion into creating one of today’s leading integration firms.
We went to a technology show, and I remember the first time we saw the Crestron booth, and we were curious to find out why their technology was so important for so many people. So, we got into smart home technology very quickly.
At that time, we were actually doing remote CCTV, and it was an easy transition to go from surveillance applications into home automation, lighting control and then audio. And we had a magnificent teacher, Frank Will, who was the manufacturer’s rep for AMX at that particular point. I don’t know why, but he saw something special in us and started educating us on everything in residential smart home integration. Every time a dealer did something wrong installing an AMX system, he called us to fix it. And suddenly, we were scaling our game.
So, from two guys, doing all the sales, wiring, installation and everything, Maxicon is now celebrating twenty years in business and we’ve grown to 62 people in the company.
Left to right:
Samuel Naierman, Andres Klein and Ilan Weinstein
Doug: What geographic markets are you working in and who are your customers?
Andres: Our main market is the South Florida Tri-County area, Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. But we have also worked in Mexico, and we have done work throughout the Caribbean. We also have a location in Madrid.
Part of our success is that we have a great team of engineers. The other part is that we have dedicated project management teams. So, for example, we have a current project in Croatia. The technology design was done here in Miami, and the project management is also coordinated here in Miami, but the actual on-site management is executed by our Madrid office.
Our primary clients are specifiers, interior designers, architects and general contractors, who trust us to support their vision. We specialize in luxury residences, often multi-million-dollar homes, where design precision and flawless technology integration are essential. Beyond residential, our commercial division, Maxicon Pro, collaborates with Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG) to deliver world-class solutions for cultural, hospitality and performance spaces.
We are also involved in the commercial space, which represents about 10 percent to 20 percent of our business. This is actually a division that we call Maxicon Pro that we have been growing with the WSDG, who helped insert us into the pro business.
WSDG, as you know, is one of the top three acoustic architecture companies worldwide. We created a relationship with them to execute their Audio Video designs. Now we are doing House of Worship venues, restaurants and medium-to-large commercial projects.
Doug: Walk us through your technology design process.
Andres: We’re fortunate to join projects in the pre-construction phase, and initially we’re creating ideas. Most clients don’t have a firm idea of what they want to do, and don’t know about the technology that can influence their client’s daily lives that will also influence their design. So, we spend a great deal of time educating our clients and partners.
Today, I believe the most influential training that we have right now for both clients and partners is digital lighting. Digital lighting is a technology that has the most direct impact on both the client and the partners’ designs. And that’s something you can’t express in a PowerPoint, so we created an amazing, award-winning showroom. We want to expose clients to every possible situation that they might have in their floor plan, which begins with a tour of experiences in our showroom.
We move beyond the buzzwords of ‘smart home’. For us, it’s about the art of integration, how lighting, sound and automation enhance a designer’s vision while remaining intuitive, elegant and invisible. That’s why our award-winning showroom offers a curated journey through lighting, audio and control experiences, giving design professionals a hands-on way to envision technology as part of their work.
Doug: What are some of your favorite technology companies that support your vision of design?
Andres: Our exposure to the European market is teaching us about the importance of good design and good taste. Companies like Bang and Olufsen, where instead of completely hiding technology, they produce pieces of technology that not only sound great but look great and become part of the design. This is what I think is changing completely what we’re doing. We want to be more unique.
And outdoor living in Florida is a must. We talk about outdoor living as a solution. Again, providing the tools for the design community to be better at what they do, while supporting their clients’ needs for entertainment and lighting.
Doug: Final thoughts?
Andres: As technology designers, we’re telling our people to respect the aesthetics of the design itself. To look at our partners and the work they do as an art form, to expand on that because it is our responsibility to respect those aesthetics.
At Maxicon, our role is clear, to honor the aesthetic language of each designer and enhance it through thoughtful technology integration. Whether minimalistic, traditional or avant-garde, our solutions adapt to the designer’s style. The future of our industry lies in deeper collaboration, where technology designers listen first, learn from the design community, and elevate every project together.
Douglas Weinstein is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Technology Designer Magazine and the Technology Insider Group, as well as a Partner at TIG Global PR. A thirty-year veteran of the consumer technology industry, he is the Co-Founder and past Executive Director of the Elf Foundation, a non-profit organization creating Room of Magic entertainment theaters in children’s hospitals across North America.
