How to Scale a Business Overnight

When our mini bottle keychains went viral, we were not prepared. Up until then, a good day meant maybe one or two orders. Then almost overnight we were slammed, and at our peak we hit 200 orders in a single day. We had no idea what we were doing, and the hobby we had been running on evenings and weekends suddenly felt like a real business, and this is just a few things we learned on how to scale a business overnight.

We quickly realized this wasn’t just about printing and shipping anymore. We had to figure out inventory, keep track of materials, and start ordering supplies in bulk. PLA filament went from something we bought one spool at a time to cases stacked up at the door. We were constantly looking for wholesale deals and finding out which brands held up the best. Then there were all the little things you don’t think about until you need them like shipping labels, bubble mailers, boxes, tape, wrapping paper, and all the tools that keep the operation running smoothly. One tip we learned early on is that UPS gives small businesses a very generous supply of packaging supplies for free, and it made a huge difference when every penny counted. I remember an early conversation I had with Abbey, when my official package sticker printer arrived, and she said

"Why would we need that, it's so unnecessary"

because at the time we had done only a few sales and been fine with just printing them and taping labels them on. I just had a feeling, and man did it turn out true. That printer was a god send.

Lots of shipping labels on packages

At the same time, we had to scale our equipment. I started with just one 3D printer, the same one I had been tinkering with as a hobby. That worked fine when we were printing for fun, but it didn’t last long once the orders started rolling in. Almost every dollar that came in went right back into the business, and we went from one printer to two, then four, and eventually six. The sound of machines running all night became part of the house, and our little setup grew into something much bigger than we expected.

It wasn’t just the equipment though. We had to figure out how to run things in a way that didn’t completely burn us out. One of the biggest changes was learning to separate the work. If we tried to print, assemble, and package all in the same stretch of time, we would be exhausted. So we split it up. One night we would focus on preparing inventory, building up pieces and parts, and the next morning I might wake up early and dedicate time to packaging and shipping before my day job. That rhythm helped us keep our sanity.

We also learned quickly that timing mattered. At first, our printers would finish jobs at two in the morning, which left us with two choices: either wake up in the middle of the night to swap them out or lose six or seven hours of print time. Neither was sustainable. We started adjusting print start times so they would finish in the morning or evening when we were already awake, which made rotations much smoother. And it wasn’t just about keeping them running, it was about keeping them running right. Cleaning and oiling the machines, making sure the build plates were fresh, and staying on top of maintenance meant less downtime and fewer stressful nights dealing with failed prints.

Storage and organization became another battle. For a while we had parts, spools, and mailers scattered all over the place, and it added a lot of stress to an already overwhelming process. We took a few trips to Menards and picked up shelving, bins, and storage containers, and built a system that worked for us. Once everything had a place, our operation started to feel less like chaos and more like a small business.

The keychains themselves weren’t simple. Each one had five separate pieces in different colors, and on top of that we offered six different color combinations. That meant every night after Abbey and I finished our 9-to-5 jobs, we sat down for another five or six hours building keychains and packaging orders. Our dining table turned into an assembly line, and our nights disappeared into a blur of snapping pieces together, sealing bubble mailers, and printing labels. It was exciting, and we loved seeing the sales come in, but it was also exhausting. We were riding the high of the cash flow, but it quickly started to take a toll.

Like most viral moments, the pace eventually slowed down. In some ways, that was a relief, but it also forced us to face the reality of competition, rising costs, and how to keep the business moving forward without burning out. That part of the story deserves its own space, and in the next post I’ll share why things started to slow down, how we dealt with it, and what we learned from trying to chase the momentum.