Going 'All In': Lab Owner Flips Business Model to Compete

By Maribeth Marsico

Posted Sep 27, 2018 in Labs & Profiles

A Wharton business school graduate, Isaac Hakimi was living in Shanghai and working for an investment firm when he happened to “discover” the dental laboratory outsourcing industry and a seed was planted. Once back in the U.S. in 2007, he pursued his idea of opening a U.S.-based laboratory to service dentists who wanted to outsource C&B work to China. 


Streamline Dental Laboratory was born in a Manhattan high rise with one employee; Hakimi sent his work to a large lab in China and eventually began fabricating some removable work in-house. Within six years, the entire operation grew to 11 people with annual sales of $2 million. 


But by 2014, things had changed. Although Hakimi knew the zirconia market was growing, Streamline’s zirconia business wasn’t. “I realized we couldn’t compete with U.S. labs because of the shipping time to and from China;...

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About The Author

  • Maribeth Marsico

    Senior Editor at LMT Communications, Inc. · Cheshire, CT

    A 30-year veteran of the editorial department, Maribeth loves getting to the heart of the story. She especially enjoys creating and analyzing reader surveys and staying in touch with our readers.

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