A 29-year-old in Kraków sells 340 plastic stands a month that turn a $599 Mac Mini into an iMac.
The trick is in the plastic.
The Mini slides into a cradle at the base. A ribbed spine rises behind it. A 15.6-inch portable OLED bolts to the top plate with 4 screws.
1 USB-C cable carries power and picture to the screen.
The ribs do real work. They pull cool air past the Mini's bottom vent, so it runs at full speed with no fan noise.
The math:
Apple's 24-inch iMac costs $1,299.
Mini + OLED + stand comes to $937.
When the screen dies, you replace a $249 panel and keep the computer.
He found the idea in March. It was a 22-second clip with 3.1M views.
He bought a Bambu Lab P1S for $699 and ran it 20 hours a day in a 14 m² room above a pharmacy.
Month 1: 11 sales on Etsy at $49. Bare plastic.
Then he stopped selling plastic and started selling kits. The kit has the stand, 4 brass inserts, a short braided cable and a printed setup card. The price went up to $89.
Month 4: 3 printers.
Month 6: 340 orders. $30,260 in sales. About $17,000 left after filament, fees and shipping.
Each stand takes 14 hours to print and uses $6 of filament.
The real money is in the timing. Apple changes the Mini's size every few years. Each time, every stand already sold stops fitting.
The new file is ready the week the new Mini ships, and his past buyers order again.
Apple sells the computer. He sells the shape it should have come in.