Monticelli Band

Elijah Monticelli was broke—actually in debt by $5,000—and living in his parents' basement when he decided to turn his craftsmanship into a business. At just 23 years old, he had been making handmade Apple Watch cuff bands since he was 16, but never thought to sell them commercially. The breakthrough product idea was creating cuff bands that could work with the Apple Watch's heart rate sensor while offering a premium, wide cuff design—something that hadn't been widely available until recently. "Nothing like this has ever been made before until fairly recently," Elijah explained. The Venture Black Tailored Fit band, his bestseller, retailed for $169 and took about five hours to make with roughly $30 in materials.

Elijah moved fast. He launched on September 11, 2015, and didn't overthink it. He used Shopify's two-week free trial and the $150 AdWords credit that came with it. He reached out to Matt Galant, an AdWords expert he'd met at the Non-Job Summit, to help set up the strategy. But he didn't stop there—he opened stores on multiple platforms simultaneously: Shopify, Etsy, and eBay. "I chose several different outlets to see which one would stick the best," he said. Within weeks, the winner became clear: Etsy dominated with 70% of his sales because of the platform's community of craftspeople and the direct customer engagement it offered. On Etsy, customers could chat with him about customizations and alterations, creating a personal connection that typical online stores couldn't replicate.

His first customer was Katie from Canada, who clicked on a Google ad that read something like: "Display your individuality with one of our custom made Apple Watch bands." That initial Google Ad sale proved the concept worked, but it was Etsy that became his growth engine. By mid-November 2015—just two months in—he was hitting his stride with about two orders per day at peak, translating to roughly 20+ orders per month. By that point, he had sold over 30 bands for a total of approximately $6,000 in revenue.

What worked: focusing on a single, beautiful, premium product that solved a real problem. What didn't: Elijah's urge to diversify. Nathan Latka, the interviewer, challenged him hard on this instinct. Elijah kept talking about wanting to add more products—lower-tier, mid-tier, and top-tier items—and eventually expand into satchels to become a "full featured shop" like Saddleback. Latka pushed back: "It sounds like you just have this urge though to have like you go to these other sites who you love the design and you go, well, they have 20 products, I need 20 products, versus just focusing on one thing." Elijah admitted the urge came from studying successful brands and seeing they had dozens of products, not realizing those brands had typically built their empire on a single core product first. He acknowledged the tension: "Being so new to the market, of course I haven't, I don't get to see that." Latka's advice was simple: focus on scaling the one product that's already working rather than chasing the product development cycle.

By November 2015, Elijah had proven product-market fit on Etsy and was generating about $6,000 in revenue with minimal marketing spend beyond initial AdWords experiments. He was considering hiring help to streamline production so he could expand the business while staying in his craftsman comfort zone. His long-term vision was to build a full brand like Saddleback, but he remained torn between the gratification of developing new products and the pressure to scale what was already working. At 23, he was living proof that you don't need a massive team or investment to start a premium product business—just craft, the right platform, and discipline.