It all started in a garage—just two friends spending weekends making stuff and filming videos for YouTube. That’s how Brothers Make began. What started as a weekend hobby quickly evolved into a scalable, profitable business model globally, even as far as Africa. Let’s break down how the whole thing got started.
Turning Bottle Caps into a Hit with £3
Matt was in marketing job and Jonny was a teacher. One day at school, George helped students turn plastic bottle caps into pens. As usual, the two friends filmed a tutorial and uploaded it to YouTube. To their surprise, it blew up—millions of views overnight. And all it took was a £3 secondhand panini press and a homemade wooden mold. That one video changed everything. Every recycled-plastic video that followed took off too, and just like that, plastic became their thing.
Scaling Smart, Not Fast
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s break down the basic flow: collect plastic waste, melt it down, shape it into a product. Simple enough. But what’s really impressive is that, in the early days, they kept it very basic. Just scissors to cut up plastic, wooden molds they built themselves, and hours spent sanding each piece by hand.
They stayed in that DIY stage until the traffic started rolling in. Once they knew there was real demand, that’s when the brothers began refining the process—turning the handmade products into something more scalable.
After explored a few ways to turn recycled plastic into usable products. In the end, it was the small-scale injection moulding machines that made the most sense for them. Compact and relatively easy to operate. Most importantly, it didn’t require a huge upfront investment. It was something they could plug in and start experimenting with right away.
Multiple Revenue Streams
Their original model was about showing people how to make their own plastic items from home. The audience include not only DIY lovers and eco-conscious creators, but also craft market sellers, educators, and anyone curious about small-scale, home-based production. Now, that hand-tool-filled garage has grown into a real workshop. And with it, their business model has evolved with multiple income streams:
- YouTube tutorials
- Paid launch content (Behind-the-scenes tips and product drops)
- Product sales (Via website and local fairs)
- Affiliate partnerships (Machines and tools)
- Project replication support
Deep Collaboration, Real Growth
Remember when we mentioned how they shifted to injection moulding? Technically, they’re injecting softened plastic into steel moulds to form products. But behind this move was a crucial partner—Plasticpreneur. Since each product requires a custom steel mould, the tooling isn’t cheap—more complex moulds can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
The partnership with Plasticpreneur goes way beyond just buying machines and earning affiliate commissions. It’s more like a deep collaboration that plays a key role in how they operate. Matt has said that whenever they come up with a new product idea, they’ll talk with the team—discussing everything from 3D modelling, mould design, production planning and cost estimates. Most of their moulds are actually made through this partnership.
And that setup gives the brothers the freedom to focus on what they do best: exploring eco product ideas, making content that inspires, and turning recycled plastic into products that people actually want to use.
Most of their products are simple: key clips, coasters, statement necklaces. Price between £10 and £20. But their most ambitious product by far is a pair of sunglasses, priced at £79. What makes it stand out is the concept of “forever frames.” If they ever break, get scratched, or wear out in any way, customers can send them back and get a brand-new pair. Reprocessed and reshaped from the same recycled plastic. All for free.
Built-In Green Marketing
With over 1.1 million followers across platforms, Brothers Make’s each project video is a built-in marketing engine, complete with direct links to their store for fans who love the mission but don’t want to DIY. And here’s the clever part: instead of brands having to build a whole new eco-product line from scratch, they can team up with Brothers Make. They already have the audience, the production tools, and the story-driven content to bring it to life.
Take their collaboration with a jewelry brand, for example. Together, they turned beach-cleaned plastic into handcrafted beads. The brothers organized a community clean-up, processed the plastic into molds, and the brand finished the pieces as jewelries. The whole process was filmed and shared—turning a simple product drop into a powerful story about sustainability, creativity, and smart marketing.
Sustainability is a global conversation and what the brothers are doing has captured real attention. They’ve been invited around the world: to Malaysia, schools across the UK, and even Gambia in Africa. Sometimes it’s organizing events, other times it’s helping communities build their own plastic recycling workspaces—guiding them through the machines, tools, and hands-on process of turning waste into products. Just like their own projects, these collaborations are filmed and shared.
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