He likes unglamorous niche products like the "middleware" that insurers use to link various databases.
Beyond crowdsourcing companies, startups are building new marketplaces where people can sell niche products or services online.
Oracle has two versions of financial-tracking software, three sets of code for customer data and dozens of niche products.
Many analysts expect 3D printing to revolutionize manufacturing, allowing small firms like Vander Kooij's to make niche products without hiring many people.
Making niche products for the elderly may be one way to make money out of them, but perhaps not the chief way.
First, it means that the market can accomodate a lot of niche products that will only appeal to a tiny minority of people.
Both companies also monetize the long tail, that is, take advantage of the limitless digital shelf space to help sell even the smallest niche products.
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Demand for its niche products and services have been on the rise, but even more optimism about the company has emerged on Wall Street when Mobile Mini announced this morning (Mar. 19, 2013) that it has named as President and CEO Erik Olsson, formerly chief executive at equipment-rental company RSC Holdings.
Anchen is a profitable pharmaceutical company that develops and commercialized extended release and niche generic products.
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Basically, the Karfunkels, whom together about evenly split 49% of AmTrust shares, have made a fortune specializing in niche insurance products for small businesses, such as insuring the inventories of lumber yards and the tools of auto mechanics.
For the tech industry, the novelty of specialized and niche cloud products is beginning to lose favor as businesses look to avoid the costly habits of the past: purchasing lots and lots of point solutions from lots and lots of incompatible vendors requiring lots and lots of integrators and money and time to stitch it all together.
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Currently CSN Stores has more than 200 websites focusing on almost every possible niche of home products.
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Expensive, poor performing variable annuity insurance products dominate this niche that many mutual fund companies seemly ignore.
About two-thirds of the sales volume of business software is spent on niche solutions, not on products from the large vendors.
It is already ten times bigger than its next biggest direct competitor, and it doubled its stock of images last year, from 10, 000 to 20, 000, partly by buying smaller niche players or licensing their products.
As well, as new players begin participating in the community they can see opportunities to create new products or enter new niche markets, sometimes with partners where greater mutual accountability and mutual benefit is now possible because of social tools.
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When consolidation takes hold, a popular niche will be business services products that can be deployed in various types of companies to enhance productivity.
Procter has historically excelled in innovating and launching premium products, finding the right niche for them, and out-spending their competitors to gain market-share leadership.
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Lincoln is hoping to tap a niche in China where customers buy luxury products for their own personal experience, rather than for reasons of status, and plans to offer tailored services to customers as well as focus on technology and offering unique products.
Along the way they identified a niche: those who liked eco-friendly products but weren't hard-core "granola" types.
Akorn is a niche generic pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products in the areas of ophthalmology, antidotes and anti-infectives in addition to controlled substances for pain management and anesthesia.
Some niche companies that made it through the worst of the recession now find pent-up demand for products pushing revenues and profits higher.
But it's also worth bearing in mind that the wording leaves some wriggle room for Intel -- not least in terms of selling LGA socket chips only as expensive niche options (i.e. the true definition of "enthusiast") rather than as mainstream products, should it wish to do so.
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So far, that niche has been in government business, but the company is shifting focus more to the private sector with its new products and services.
The enthusiasm for energy stocks spilled over into a niche oilfield services company: Amsterdam-based Core Laboratories NV, which provides drillers with production development and reservoir management products and services.
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