Pet Products
Indiegogo campaign (2016)$511K
Furbo Dog Camera
Furbo combined an HD pet camera with a remote treat tosser, then became the best-selling pet camera on Amazon.
Tomofun · Taiwan, China→
Real products · Real numbers · Small teams
How tiny teams built profitable hardware brands
A curated library of 23 real success stories — automatic pet feeders, smart plant watering, bottle cutters, coffee gear and more. Each case shows the product, the team, the revenue and exactly how they did it.
23Verified cases
4Categories
5Languages
$0Cost to read
23Verified cases
4Categories
5Languages
$0Cost to read
Why this library exists
Hardware is hard. Learning from people who already did it makes it easier.
Most hardware advice online is written by marketers, not makers. Maketh collects documented cases of small teams — often two to five people — who shipped a physical product, found customers and made real money.
Every case includes what the product does, how big the team was when it started, the crowdfunding or revenue numbers we could verify, and the specific decisions that made it work.
Verified revenue and crowdfunding figures with sources
The founder's actual playbook, not generic advice
Categories you can act on today: pets, plants, kitchen, EDC
Patterns that repeat across hardware categories
Editor's picks
Stories worth studying first
Pet Products
Indiegogo campaign (2016)$511K
Pet Products
Cumulative sales>$50M
Petlibro Granary Automatic Feeder
Petlibro iterated a cheap automatic feeder through ten versions until it stopped jamming, then rode Amazon to $50M in sales.
Petlibro (Shenzhen) · China→
Kitchen & Drink
First Kickstarter (2012)$80,946
Kinkajou Bottle Cutter
A simplified bottle cutter that made upcycling glass accessible to anyone - and a $4M business run from a home office.
Bottle Cutting Inc. · Canada→
Home & Garden
Water saved (by 2023)150 billion gallons
Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controller
Rachio replaced the garage-wall sprinkler timer with a weather-aware controller - and saved users 150 billion gallons of water.
Rachio · United States→
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The full library
Every success story
Home & Garden
Kickstarter 2013$625,851 / 10,477 backers
Click & Grow Smart Garden
Pre-seeded plant pods plus a self-watering pot turned indoor herbs into a razor-and-blades business with 500,000+ gardens sold.
Click & Grow · Estonia→
Pet Products
Annual revenue~$180M (2022)
Litter-Robot
A bootstrapped self-cleaning litter box grew from a garage to ~$180M in annual revenue without early venture capital.
Whisker (formerly AutoPets) · United States→
Pet Products
Kickstarter (2020)€4.19M (~$5M)
Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder
An AI camera bird feeder that funded in 22 minutes, sold 250,000+ units and passed €100M in cumulative revenue.
Bird Buddy · Slovenia→
Pet Products
Annual recurring revenue€100M+ (2024)
Tractive GPS Pet Tracker
Hardware sold near cost, margin carried by subscriptions - and €100M in annual recurring revenue for a pet GPS company.
Tractive · Austria→
Pet Products
Annual revenue (est.)~$130M
SureFlap Microchip Pet Door
A physicist patented a microchip-reading cat door, kept prices premium and sold through vets instead of racing to the bottom.
Sure Petcare · United Kingdom→
Home & Garden
Indiegogo (2021)$7.23M / ~19,000 backers
Lomi Countertop Composter
A $1-deposit pre-launch funnel helped Lomi become Indiegogo's biggest campaign of 2021 at $7.23M.
Pela (Lomi) · Canada→
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Are these cases real?
Yes. Every story is a real product from a real company. We link to the sources we used — press releases, founder interviews, crowdfunding pages and business reports — at the bottom of each case.
What counts as a “small team”?
We focus on companies that started with roughly one to five people: solo founders, couples, siblings and small founder groups. Many later grew much larger, which is part of the story.
Do you sell anything?
No. Maketh is a free, editorial library. We do not sell products, take commissions or accept paid placements inside case stories.
How often is it updated?
We add new cases continuously. If you know a small team with a great physical product story, write to us — we may feature it.