Walk into Gen-Y Hitch‘s headquarters in Nappanee, Indiana, and the whole story is visible at once. Raw North American steel comes in one end of the building, finished towing hitches, ramps, and running boards go out the other. Robotic arms work alongside dozens of craftsmen from the surrounding Amish community, many of them neighbors of founder Carl Borkholder, who grew up two miles down the road. Twelve years ago, none of this existed. There was a garage, a welder, and a pile of hitches that kept causing problems.
Borkholder owned a tree service company, and every morning his crews arrived to find that the specific hitch size they needed that day was already on someone else’s truck. That frustration gave him an idea. A welder by trade, Borkholder stacked a set of receiver tubes and welded them into something that had never existed before: an adjustable, lockable, multi-ball hitch built from American steel that could handle loads of up to 20,000 pounds, nearly double anything you could buy at the store. He wasn’t thinking about building a company. He was thinking about solving his problem. He did both.
We had no dealer presence, no wholesale distributors. But we had a great product, and we had Amazon.
Nappanee contractors saw the hitch and started asking for one, then three, then more, and his thinking shifted. One night, Borkholder and his wife sat at the kitchen table and made the decision to sell the tree service business and “go all in.” His wife took a full-time job to support the family while he built the business from the ground up.
For a first-time manufacturer without industry connections, selling in Amazon’s store removed a barrier that would have otherwise taken years to clear. Getting merchandised on a retail shelf meant convincing corporate buyers at national chains, a process, Borkholder explained, “that gets measured in months, meetings, and costly slotting fees.” Listing his products in Amazon’s store meant doing it himself, that week, from Nappanee.
For a first-time manufacturer without industry connections, selling in Amazon’s store removed a barrier that would have otherwise taken years to clear.
Borkholder was able to immediately ship his products to Amazon warehouses, choosing Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to handle the packing, shipping, returns and customer service on his behalf. For Gen-Y Hitch, it meant products sitting closer to customers across the country and arriving quickly. He adopted Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to fulfill orders from Gen-Y Hitch’s website and other sales channels through Amazon’s fulfillment network—delivering fast, reliable service wherever customers shop. With Amazon, Borkholder also had the freedom to self-fulfill any product at any time, giving his team the flexibility to ship directly from Nappanee the same day an order came in.
As his consumer sales grew, Amazon Business opened the door to business buyers like fleet operators, contractors, and commercial purchasers. These were the customers Borkholder had built his first hitch for and now, with Amazon Business, Borkholder was able to offer them quantity discounts, bulk ordering, and 24/7 access, through a channel they already trusted. Buyers who once had to call a distributor could now place an order before breakfast, from any job site, at any hour. It meant a welder in Nappanee could reach a contractor in Phoenix or a fleet manager in Calgary as easy as a neighbor down the road.
I remember saying to my business partner, ‘If we could sell one hitch a day, we would have it made.’ Today, we build and ship thousands a day.
In 2025, Gen-Y Hitch posted its best year ever in Amazon’s store with more than $5 million in revenue, up 35% year over year. That same year, Gen-Y Hitch hired Ryan Cramer to manage their Amazon channel full-time. The timing was right. Amazon’s new AI-powered seller tools were redefining what one person could do.
The executive team tracks the milestones—the first $10,000 day, the first $20,000 day, the first $100,000 day. “Those days kept stacking up,” Cramer said.
Cramer manages hundreds of SKUs, oversees inventory across fulfillment centers on both coasts, and handles listings, advertising, and international expansion. He organizes all of it around three pillars he calls inventory, listings, and advertising. He does it nimbly, with Amazon’s AI tools working for him in the background. “Amazon’s AI tools take my time and multiply it by 20,” Cramer said.
The goal, as Cramer describes it, is replication at speed. Every process that works for one SKU needs to work for hundreds, and eventually thousands, without the wheels coming off. Amazon’s gen AI listing tools made one of the most time-consuming parts of launching products in the Amazon store, almost effortless. What once meant filling out sprawling spreadsheets for every product attribute and variation, a process that took 30 to 45 minutes per listing, now takes under five minutes.
Gen-Y Hitch sources North American steel, manufactures every item in Nappanee, and tests every product before it ships.
Once the product is live, Amazon’s AI-powered Seller Assistant monitors sales velocity and flags concerns before they become problems. For advertising, Cramer turns to Amazon Ads’ Creative Studio as a force multiplier. From a single photograph, the tool generates the full visual suite, 3D renderings, lifestyle images, and a product video, in minutes. Then, with the Build International Listings tool, Cramer pushes that same product into Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. With a single toggle, listings are automatically translated into local languages. A product that once would have taken weeks to research, build, photograph, and launch globally now moves from idea to international shelf in a fraction of the time.
That pipeline is about to get even faster. Cramer said his team is planning to develop new products at a pace that wasn’t possible before, and Product Opportunity Explorer is central to that. The tool surfaces trends in searches, purchases, reviews, and pricing, pulling back the data on his product category to show what customers want next.
It’s not just about saving time and money. Amazon is listening to seller feedback and building the tools we need to be successful.
“We’ve really redefined what it means to be a small business in a small community,” said Donna Schmucker, Gen-Y Hitch’s Marketing Director. “Humble beginnings, and yet we’re selling globally across the world.” Their product is made entirely in America, said Borkholder, and he is deliberate about it. Gen-Y Hitch sources North American steel, manufactures every item in Nappanee, and tests every product before it ships, he explained. “Made in America means heavy duty, built right,” Borkholder said. The company holds between 70 and 80 patents, each one protecting an innovation designed and built in the US. For Borkholder, domestic manufacturing isn’t a marketing position. It’s a standard.
That standard runs straight through to his workforce. The 60 people who work at Gen-Y Hitch are largely local, Amish craftsmen from down the road—families Borkholder has known his whole life. He built the headquarters around them, polling employees on what they wanted most in a workplace and delivering on the answers, including an on-site daycare facility and gym. When a local RV and garage door manufacturer was at risk of closing last year, he acquired the business rather than let those 100 jobs disappear from the community. “It’s surreal,” Borkholder said. “Of all people, me doing this? I completed eighth grade. And now there are 160 people across two companies depending on us to make the right decisions. I embrace that. I love that grind.” Each year, the company divides a charitable budget among its leaders, who direct funds to local food pantries, high school meal programs, and neighbors in need. “This community has done a lot for me personally,” he said. “It’s only right we do a lot for it.”
Borkholder’s target is $1 billion in revenue within the next five to seven years, and he’s clear about who his partner is in getting there. “Amazon will be a big part of how we get there,” he said. “I know we can reach $50, maybe $100 million just in Amazon’s store.” For a founder who started in a garage and once thought one hitch a day would be enough, the ambition is striking. But for Borkholder, it fits. “I think God wants us to dream bigger than a lot of us do,” he said. “And with Amazon behind you, bigger starts to look a lot more possible.”