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I wanted to innovate a standard can cooler. The first thing I thought is what good is just one can. So I made it hold two cans and then if a can cooler holds two cans, you're not going to be able to drink the bottom one. So I made it open at both the top and the bottom, so you can easily get to the second can by placing the first one in the bottom. My name is Mike Satterlee and I'm 19 years old. My can cooler business, CruiseCup brought in about $808,000 in 2025. So I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. Ever since I was a kid I've been always doing everything I could to make money. My first business, I actually sold a sand repellent lotion where it kept sand from sticking to your skin at the beach. When I started that, I was only 13 years old.
With that business, I learned so much about entrepreneurship, so much about e-commerce, and it really got my foot in the door. And as soon as I made that first sale, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. When I went to high school, that's when I got into 3D printing. I actually took a design class and I started selling different products that I designed online. Not going to college was the hardest decision of my life because I like to see myself as a lifetime learner. I started CruiseCup in May of 2025 right before I graduated, and that's where things really took off. So this is the warehouse where we keep all of our
inventory, where we fulfill the orders. And it's also my office. I understood the only way to get to the level I wanted to be at was to work on it full time. I made a deal with myself and I gave myself one year. If the business ended up succeeding, I would continue to do that full-time, but if it failed, then I would go to college. With the reload can coolers, I posted a video on social media and it immediately went viral and immediately it produced sales. So then I realized there was product market fit with that product. This is the 3D printer factory. In here, we have over 160 machines. On each printer, we have a five
kilogram spool of filament and 24/7 these printers are printing CruiseCups. I incorporate a lot of AI into my business, whether that's automating my print farm, making sure they're constantly running even while I'm sleeping, or whether that's helping me do email workflows and respond to customer support emails. That allows me to run lean and minimize my number of employees, which also helps me minimize my overhead. I have one full-time employee. He ships orders out, cleans the prints up, and takes care of the fulfillment. Personally, I handle all the books, the social media, day to day support, and just managing the business. In a week, I typically work anywhere from 80 to 85 hours.
Every day I wake up, I'm excited to go to work. I mean, honestly, I don't really even see it as work. I love what I do. I love building stuff and it makes it not even feel like work. It's just fun. Right now on my website, I average anywhere from 50 to 100 orders a day, but in Q4 that could get to around 400 to 700 orders a day. Right now, our double can cooler stainless steel is our best seller. So I have two utility patents pending around our double
can cooler, which was super important because a lot of copycats started to pop up, especially around the 3D printed version. In 2025, CruiseCup's gross revenue was $808,000. CruiseCup's biggest expense was 3D printers and filament, which was around $117,000. Cruise Cup is profitable, and with all the profits, it goes right back into the business, whether that's with product development for new products or whether that's buying more and more inventory. Right now, I don't take a formal salary from the business because I live with my parents, meaning I don't have to pay for living expenses like rent or utilities. However, I do take money out for food, gas and personal investments.
Between January 2026 and September 2026, CruiseCup's gross revenue was around $601,000. CruiseCup's biggest expense was inventory and molds, which came out to around $180,000. These printers are midway through the print. The average CruiseCup takes around eight hours to print. In the past, I've worked with a couple 3D printing companies. They sent me filament, 3D printers and now I'm starting to work with laser engraving companies who are sending me some of their products. And then over here we have our laser engraver.
This is where we can etch custom designs onto our CruiseCups. My stainless steel can coolers are manufactured in China. I made the switch from 3D printed can coolers to stainless steel in July of 2026, but the product has been in development since October of 2025. I saw the demand in the 3D printed product, so I knew it was worth spending the MOQ and paying for the mold cost of getting the stainless steel units in-house. It was way more scalable. So with 3D printing, it's good for the amount I was selling. But in order to scale up, I would have to keep buying more and more 3D printers, which I was running out of space. And actually it would cost more
money than getting it manufactured overseas in the long run. The reason it took so long to bring the stainless steel product to life is because I'm very tedious about my products. It took countless samples, countless rejections, countless materials just until I got it perfect. I order all our stainless steel products Delivered Duty Paid, that way I have assurance that the price won't change based on the situation with tariffs. The challenges to getting my products manufactured overseas is the whole production and development cycle takes around 180 days, and with 3D printing, I can make an idea turn into a product overnight.
The benefits with working overseas is that I can order way more quantity. I can order tens of thousands of units so I can keep up with the demand. So around the holidays, the demand is crazy and the orders just come flying in. And with 3D printers you could only keep up with a certain amount. So my biggest regret in the business is not moving to stainless steel products sooner so I could keep up with the demand. Last Christmas, I actually had to stop selling because it got to a certain point where I wouldn't be able to fulfill the products before Christmas, so I had to take the listings down, which was a big opportunity loss because I lost out on half of December.
So at first it's going to be directly business to business, companies that want products for trade shows and want their logos on it. But in the future, we're going to add custom designs to the website. I plan to roll out more traditional drinkware products end of 2027, beginning of 2028. I already have relationships with the factories that produce them, and it's just a next step for CruiseCup to scale. My biggest goal at this point is to get CruiseCup into big box retailers. At this point, I will not go to college. I will continue to grow CruiseCup and make it what I know it will be and can be.
