In a modest 600-square-foot shop in Ballston Lake, New York, one man has achieved what many small business owners only dream of—a fully automated factory capable of generating millions in product output each year.
Steve, the creator behind the project, who did not reveal his last name, shared a walk-through of his setup on his YouTube channel @PlanesBoatsandSubmarines. In the video, he says: “With this setup right here, we’re able to make $250,000 of product every month out of a 600 square-foot shop, and today I’m going to show you how it works.”
The system, which Steve says cost “under $10,000 in self-built machinery” to create, uses Arduino boards, an open-source electronics platform, to automate every step of production at the factory, which puts together bottles of Seat Reviver, a boat cleaning product created by Steve.
He told Newsweek: “It’s automated by Arduino boards, which use sensors to detect bottles and control the conveyors, labeling machine, bottle filling, and all other aspects to allow the bottles to be fed from a conveyor and result in a near-finished product at the other end with minimal labor.”
From Idea to Innovation
Steve began building the factory in March 2025, completing it in about two months. “We started with the automatic labeling machine first, bottle machine second, cap-sealing machine third. The hardest part was debugging the code that controls each machine. Eventually, we had a reliable system,” he said.
The inspiration came from his experience in the boating industry. “It all started with the idea that I wanted to create a better alternative for cleaning and protecting boat seats. Having been in the boating industry for over a decade, and between the submarine and my boat rental business, I learned that a lot of products out there required a lot of reapplication, scrubbing, and ultimately damaged the seat threading,” Steve added.
“So, I set out a plan to build an automated factory from scratch, and I knew it would be a fun challenge. This happened before we even launched Seat Reviver, the boat seat cleaner and vinyl protectant that we created,” he said.
Choosing the location was a practical decision. “I chose our shop for economical reasons. I owned it already, and it wasn’t being used. Currently, our shop functions as a mini factory, but we still call it the shop,” Steve added.
Scaling Up Without Breaking the Bank
The results have been staggering. “The factory’s maximum output has been tested to produce $3 million worth of bottles [a year]. In our first month, when our product first went viral, we produced 10,000 units in the first month and maintained output,” Steve said, adding that this is how they have been able to estimate its yearly output, which is equivalent to $3 million.
What makes this achievement even more remarkable is the cost efficiency. “I built each of these machines. If I bought them, they’d cost over a quarter-million to buy,” Steve noted in his video.
He told Newsweek: “You see this technology with many large manufacturing companies, but rarely with small brands, because the commercial equipment costs 10 to 20 times more than it would cost to build it yourself. That’s what makes a project like this rare and special. It’s a grassroots beginning with dedication to scale, and it has allowed us to enter the market with little overhead.”
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