When I say extremely niche, I mean extremely niche. Not the sort of thing you get by cold-calling some corporate entity. Maybe you become involved and well-know

When I say extremely niche, I mean extremely niche. Not the sort of thing you get by cold-calling some corporate entity. Maybe you become involved and well-known in an obscure technical field at the margins of economic feasibility. Eventually you run into someone who holds the purse strings at some organization who is interested in that field. You work together a bit, and eventually ask whether they'd want to pay you for a one-off trial project using the technology. Stuff like that.