A $500 3D printer helped 18-year-old Michael Satterlee turn product ideas into a business that generated $808K in sales. His story shows what can happen when you test ideas, learn from mistakes, and keep improving.
One of his products went viral on social media, with a video reaching over 50 million views. CruiseCup generated $315K in sales in just one month. As demand grew, Michael partnered with a Chinese manufacturer to scale production.
Let’s start with some basic facts:
- Product: Can Cooler That Shoots Out Empty Cans
- Founder: Michael Satterlee, a 17-Year-Old High School
- Student Started: August 2025, in his parents’ basement
- Starting Investment: A $500 3D printer
- Revenue: $808K in just 5 months
Let’s explore Michael’s journey from a first-person perspective, from testing different product ideas to finding a hit and scaling production.
I Started With $300 and One Printer
I’ve always been full of out-there product ideas and wanted to bring them to life. Back in middle school, I started my first online business selling a sand-removal product I made myself using hand sanitizer and cornstarch.
I had almost no startup money, so I used just two free tools: a Google Sites website and an Amazon Handmade shop. I showcased my product on the website and directed interested visitors to Amazon to buy it.
Since Amazon Handmade waived the monthly shop fee, I didn’t need to pay for a standalone online store. The “Buy” button on my website was simply a link to my Amazon shop. The project helped me save up around $800 for my next venture.
With those savings, I spent about $500 on my first 3D printer. I was a freshman in high school when I took a class called “Design and Drawing for Production”, where I first learned CAD modeling and 3D printing.
I was excited to realize that I could take an idea straight from my head, turn it into a digital model, and then bring it to life with a 3D printer. I started wondering, “What could I make with this machine that people would actually want to buy?”
At first, I pretty much made whatever came to mind. I tried 3D-printed calculator cases and flashlight accessories, along with funny novelty items like fake toes and other quirky gifts for white elephant exchanges.
I listed these products on platforms like Etsy to see if people would buy them, while posting videos on social media to find out which ideas caught people’s attention.
Finally, one product took off: a tiny snowplow attachment for Crocs. It clipped onto the toe of the shoe, making it look like a mini snowplow when I walked. It was pretty hilarious. I posted a video on Instagram, and it racked up over 65 million views. The comments were flooded with people asking where they could buy one.
I started developing more products for the niche Crocs charms market, most priced between $8 and $15. I was on a roll. Whenever a new idea popped into my head, I wanted to make it right away and post it on Instagram to see if people were interested before deciding whether to keep producing it.
My Parents’ Basement Became My Factory
I noticed that many Crocs charms on the market had cute, familiar designs, but few were quirky or unexpected enough to really stand out.
I started with just one 3D printer and $300 in startup money, turning my parents’ basement into a small workshop. I designed and tested all kinds of fun, over-the-top accessories, from beer can holders to weapon-shaped charms, while handling the printing, packing, and shipping myself.
I sold the products on Amazon and Etsy. I also filmed fun videos showing the accessories attached to Crocs and posted them on TikTok and Instagram to get people’s attention.
Back then, I’d get up at 5 a.m. every day and spend three hours working in the basement before heading to school. Once classes ended around 1 p.m., I’d head back to the basement and keep working until 8 p.m. On weekends, I’d usually put in around 13 hours a day.
All that hard work started to pay off. At its peak, We brought in around $20,000 in monthly sales, adding up to nearly $250,000 a year. I reinvested most of the money back into the business, buying more 3D printers and upgrading my equipment so I could handle more orders.
Eventually, there was no room at home for all the printers. I rented a nearby warehouse of about 1,500 square feet for $3,600 a month and moved production and shipping there.
I Finally Found My Breakout Product
By 2025, I’d been making Crocs accessories for almost two years. I had around 50 3D printers by then, but orders for the charms had slowed down, leaving quite a few machines sitting idle. I started wondering what else I could make with all those printers. So I began experimenting with new ideas again. One of my products, a can cooler designed to hold a single drink can, started selling pretty well. That got me interested in the can cooler market.
I started looking at established brands like YETI to see how their products were designed and how I could put my own spin on them. I wanted to create something that was not only practical but also fun enough for people to show off at parties and share on social media.
I noticed that hard-shell can coolers like YETI’s could be a bit of a hassle to reload. You had to unscrew the top ring, take out the empty can, insert a new one, and screw the ring back on. You had to repeat the whole process every time you finished a drink.
Then an idea hit me: why not make the cooler open at both ends? That way, you wouldn’t have to unscrew the top every time. You could drink from the top and slide a new can in from the bottom whenever you wanted to reload. But I thought convenience alone wasn’t enough. What if pushing a new can in from the bottom could also shoot the empty can out of the top, just like a spent shell casing being ejected from a gun? That would make it a lot more fun.
I opened CAD and started tweaking the design right away. I found that by slightly adjusting the height and fit of the top ring, pushing a new can up from the bottom could eject the empty can through the top.
After a few tries, I had a working prototype by the end of the first day. Over the next two or three days, I kept printing, testing, and tweaking the design. About a week later, I had the product listed for sale. I called it Beerzooka, combining “beer” and “bazooka.” It works like a mini rocket launcher: whenever you reload with a fresh can, the empty one shoots out of the top.
I wasn’t sure if the product would sell, but I posted it on Instagram anyway. To my surprise, the video took off. People loved watching the empty can shoot out like a spent shell casing. I started paying close attention to the comments to see what else people wanted from the product. One request kept coming up: “Make it hold two cans.”
So I got straight to work on a new design. I extended the original cooler to fit two cans at once. The response was even better this time, and the double-can version quickly became CruiseCup’s best-selling product. In August 2025, I posted a demo of the double-can version on Instagram, and it went viral. One video racked up over 50 million views.
Orders suddenly flooded in, with hundreds coming in every day. At the time, I had around 60 3D printers in my warehouse. Even running them around the clock, I estimated it would take six weeks just to clear the backlog.
I kept buying more printers, sometimes 30 at a time, but I still couldn’t keep up with demand. Eventually, my warehouse was packed with more than 130 3D printers. By November 2025, just three months after CruiseCup officially launched in August, monthly sales had reached $315K.
Orders Exploded. My Printers Couldn't Keep Up
But as orders kept coming in, I quickly ran into a major problem: I simply couldn’t produce the products fast enough. Unlike the small Crocs charms, Beerzooka was much larger and took a lot longer to print. A single unit could take up to 10 hours to print.
I had to keep buying more 3D printers, but even then, I still couldn’t keep up with the incoming orders. I considered switching to injection molding, but in the end, I decided to stick with 3D printing.
I felt the product still had room for improvement, and 3D printing let me quickly tweak the design based on customer feedback and test new versions whenever I needed to. If I had invested tens of thousands of dollars in molds upfront, it would have been expensive to get started and much harder to make changes later.
So I kept reinvesting my earnings into the business, buying more printers and gradually growing my setup to over 100 machines. Fortunately, sales brought in enough cash to keep buying more equipment.
Even with 160 3D printers, production capacity was still my biggest concern. Machines could break down or stop working, and if another video went viral on social media, orders could pile up quickly. I was also hesitant to spend more on advertising because I couldn’t be sure I’d be able to produce and ship the orders in time.
For the time being, I kept production at a level I could manage. But I knew I’d need a better way to scale production if I wanted the business to grow further.
Why I Turned to China for Manufacturing
While the 3D-printed plastic cooler was fun and novel, I knew that keeping drinks cold was also important if I wanted to turn it into a truly practical can cooler. I believed there would be steady demand for this product at parties and outdoor gatherings, so I started working on a stainless steel version. I wanted to keep the original can-ejecting design while making it genuinely insulated and giving it a more premium feel.
This time, I decided to find a manufacturer that could mass-produce stainless steel insulated drinkware. After searching online, I found a Chinese manufacturer willing to work with me to develop this unique product.
Jing: China has a well-established insulated drinkware supply chain, with major manufacturing hubs in Yongkang and Wuyi, Zhejiang. These areas are home to specialized manufacturers and supporting suppliers covering everything from stainless steel forming and welding to vacuum insulation, surface finishing, plastic injection molding, and final assembly.
But a product like Beerzooka requires structural redesign and custom mold development. It combines a double-wall vacuum-insulated stainless steel body with plastic end components that hold the cans and enable the ejection mechanism. These parts may use rigid PP for the caps and threads, with flexible TPE where needed.
For a custom product like this, tooling costs in China could be around $10K, with an MOQ of about 5K units and a unit price of $9–10. That means a significant upfront investment is needed before mass production can begin.
Before, I could change the CAD file whenever I wanted and print a new version to test. But when working with a factory for mass production, I had to finalize the product’s structure, dimensions, and materials as much as possible before making the molds. Once the molds were made, any design changes could mean extra costs and delays.
It wasn’t just a matter of replacing the original plastic body with vacuum-insulated stainless steel. The top and bottom caps also had to fit the body precisely. The whole design needed to hold the cans securely while allowing an empty can to eject smoothly from the top when a new one was pushed in from the bottom. The mold and initial development costs were expected to run between $20K and $30K. At the same time, I was pursuing a patent for Beerzooka’s core design.
Today, CruiseCup offers stainless steel versions, while I still make the plastic versions using 3D printers.
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