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"A business movement focused on the little guy"

"An entire network of companies and organizations have sprung from, or for, the maker community. These organizations aim to help individual creators compete with the largest companies for consumer attention. Some of these companies are already familiar names, others will be. From websites and communities that provide inspiration, instruction, and designs -- such as Pinterest and Instructables -- to companies like Tech Shop that provide access to tools, to the tool-makers themselves, such as MakerBot and ShopBot, supporting services and platforms are enabling more people to make things.
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For the makers who believe others might also want to see and use their creations, companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer access to funding, firms like Quirky and Shapeways help take ideas to market, while Etsy and Threadless provide marketplaces that can connect makers to consumers. For those who want to reach a larger audience, a growing host of companies are acting as incubators and orchestrators to connect makers with production, manufacturing, and distribution channels.
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The rapidly growing network around makers has enabled a significant shift in power from large companies to individuals. In effect, this network has allowed the little guy, in many cases an individual, to punch above his weight and start nibbling away at the big guys' market share. In Gladwell's view, the underdog has a competitive advantage precisely because he has lacked advantages, making him scrappier, more capable of improvisation, and, most notably, less invested in winning.
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The maker trend represents the democratization of the means of production. And it is happening on a broad scale. It might be tempting, as a big company, to be complacent, to wave this off as a phenomenon limited to the coasts or big cities. That would be a mistake. In the same way that newspapers or the music industry dismissed early Internet efforts and suffered the disruptive consequences, makers are encroaching on the traditional domains of consumer goods and manufacturing. Our colleague Duleesha Kulasooriya notes that, "increasingly, any entrepreneur can have a global storefront and a global audience. Now that building new products is easier, competition can, and will, come from everywhere."