Since launching his first business, Speck Design, 11 years ago, Ryan Mongan and his business partner have founded Speck Products, famous for its iPod accessories; CAD Talent, an online job board for engineering talent; Camera Armor, which makes protective cases for cameras; and Speck China, a design and sourcing firm in China. Mongan’s latest company is called VentureNiche, which will act as a hub to help his growing family of companies to leverage each other whenever possible.

“We learned that we also enjoyed starting companies in niche markets. Our mantra when it comes to starting new companies is to fail fast, fail frugal, and fail fearlessly. We started 10 companies before we had our next successful next company, which became Speck Products. We tried new stuff, didn’t spend a lot of money, and if it wasn’t going anywhere, we shut it down. We never bet the farm on a new venture, which allowed us to keep trying.

“We come up with the majority of our ideas internally. For instance, we came up with the idea for Camera Armor at a trade show. We want to play in niches — we don’t want to go mainstream.”

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