← Shopify Masters
Shopify Masters
The Dropshipping Method That Turns First-Time Sellers Into Million-Dollar Founders
00:40:39
Supreme Ecom’s AC Hampton breaks down how he turned a dropshipping business into $1.8 million in six months—and why it’s the smartest path to brand ownership.
Loading summary
Transcript106 lines
- [00:00]
A
Went from sleeping on the church floor and then within six months did $1.8 million.
- [00:11]
B
Is dropshipping dead. A.C. hampton is living proof that actually it's just evolved.
- [00:15]
A
Dropshipping, like any business, has to be treated like a real business. If there's anywhere to put 80 to 90% of your brain, it's with the content that you're running.
- [00:23]
B
From mowing lawns as a kid to building Shopify stores, generating over $10 million in sales and helping his student students reach another 50 million, I'm getting these
- [00:31]
A
people, like, sending me messages of, like, bro, you just helped me, like, buy my mom a house.
- [00:35]
B
AC's turn setbacks into serious e comm wins. No hype, no shortcuts, just real success and the actual tactics to thrive in e Commerce in 2026. I'm your host, Serena Smith, and this is Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and scaling a business. Ac, thank you so much for being here today.
- [00:52]
A
Of course, of course. Thank you for the invite.
- [00:55]
B
Let's go back. You started with a lawn mowing business as a kid. What was it that lit that entrepreneurial spark in you, man?
- [01:04]
A
Yeah, so I started that when I was 12 years old. It was called Hampton Lawns, and, you know, I was making about 10 to $15 for every lawn that I was mowing. But, you know, what sparked it was just the, you know, the want for more. You know, I saw my parents, like, struggling basically my whole life, and I always felt bad as a kid, kind of asking for, you know, mom, can I borrow $5? Or mom, can I borrow 10? Dol. I just never wanted to be that when I already saw her struggling so early on. I was just always thinking of, how do I take that off her plate and focus on something I can do for myself?
- [01:35]
B
You were also the first in your family to go to college, right?
- [01:39]
A
Yeah. So, like, in, like, eighth grade, I got interviewed for a program where if you're not, like, the best student and you are extremely smart, but you don't apply yourself, they put you in this program for, like, all four years in high school, surrounding yourself around, like, this one teacher in the same classroom where they're all. Their goal is just to, like, help you make it to college. I remember my teacher would, like, drive me to these different universities and, like, pay for my application fees and be like, you're going to do something with your life. Like, you're way too smart. You're way too smart. And, you know, she's the only reason that I really went to college. Like, she Paid for me to. She drove me three hours ago, apply for the school that I went to, and, you know, did all the work to make sure I was able to go. So, yeah, first person in the family to go to college and graduate college, too.
- [02:24]
B
Oh, my God. Amazing. It's, like, so crazy. Faral talks about this concept of, like, a constellation of contributors to your success, right? That, like, we're all only successful by virtue of, like, all these other forces. And then you hear it, like, you hear about, like, one person like that that comes into your. It's like, almost like an angel, you know?
- [02:41]
A
Definitely an angel. I mean, she was, like, in high school. I remember going to her house and, like, she was feeding me dinner and stuff like that when my mom was, like, not, you know, traveling and working and stuff. So definitely one of those, you know, Godsent angels.
- [02:52]
B
What's her name?
- [02:52]
A
Her name is Ms. Gross.
- [02:54]
B
Shout out Ms.
- [02:55]
A
Gross. And I don't remember any teacher's name. She's, like, the only teacher I remember.
- [02:59]
B
Well, yeah, she played a pretty big role.
- [03:01]
A
She did play a big role, for sure.
- [03:03]
B
Okay, so it was in college, right, that you first got introduced to dropshipping in 2017?
- [03:08]
A
I was in my senior year, and I was basically like any other college student, not having any money at all, being completely broke, like, making, like, the craziest meals to survive. And I was living in a house with five other people, and one of the friends was in the same situation I was in. And then, like, you know, two weeks, three weeks go by, and this man's, like, buying, like, bottles in the club every single night. And I'm like, how did you. Like, I thought we were supposed to be broke. And, yeah, he was like, I'm doing this thing called drop shipping. This is like, he was selling at that time, like, fake, like, diamond chains and things like that. And at that time, you could definitely get away with that with Facebook advertising and. And, you know, running those type of products. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna try this too. So I opened up a Shopify store. Within probably about 45 minutes, I shut the store completely down. Like, this is way too much. And, you know, this entrepreneurial thing probably is not meant for me, so I just shut it down. And then I just started applying for jobs that I could go to after I graduated.
- [04:08]
B
Okay, but you found your way back.
- [04:10]
A
Found my way back, yeah. So that was in 2017. This is, like, December 2017, when I tried Shopify, got a job offer in Philly and in Oakland and in Dallas. In that moment, I was just like, I do not want to go back to my hometown of Kansas City. I want more for my life. So I just took the job, you know, in Texas. And then when I moved down there in the summertime of 2018, I worked for about like two or three months and I still knew about drop shipping. So I started another Shopify store called Happy Paws Jewelry. And I was selling like jewelry that was for like, you know, those dog moms and those cat moms and things. And I end up running it for about two months and I spent about $2,000 on ads and I didn't make a sale. So I was like, okay, maybe drop shipping is not for me. So I started working at that job again for about a month and I got fired from that job. And then, you know, I was kind of in that moment where I was like, well, I don't know anything else that I can do in my life and I could go get another job or I could just pick up the skill that I've already been trying to, you know, pursue. And then that's kind of the moment I decided to, you know, go on in on drop shipping.
- [05:14]
B
So you have two strikes and you're like, okay, yeah, let me go up to bat again. Let me give this another go.
- [05:20]
A
Yeah.
- [05:21]
B
Are you approaching it differently the third time around?
- [05:23]
A
100%. Once I got fired from the job, I remember AD showed up on my screen for like a mentorship at that time to buy a mentorship to learn drop shipping and things like this. This is like early 2018, so there wasn't like YouTube videos about drop shipping. And I was like, okay, cool, I'm a buy this mentorship. And he said it was going to be a one on one mentorship and he's going to teach me one on one. And I, I joined it and it was like 500 people on the call and it wasn't one on one at all. And I ended up like really taking a huge loss because I was kind of like down to my last bit of money. I was, I only had $2,000 when I got fired from the job and the course mentorship was about a thousand. So I'm now down to my last thousand.
- [05:59]
B
Oh my God.
- [06:01]
A
And you know, I kind of learned the ins and outs of things of not to do with drop shipping rather than what to do. But fast forward, after about a month or two after joining that mentorship, I ended up getting like my first credit card went in debt. I was like, now that 1000 went down to negative 1000. And then I end up finding my first winning product after, like Failing on about 10 of them, probably.
- [06:21]
B
What was that?
- [06:21]
A
Eureka Moment sold a mobile phone screen enhancer. And it was for older individuals to be able to see stuff on their phone easier. Basically watch movies, scroll on their phone, and see things easier. So, yeah, I found the product on like December 18, 2018. At that point, December 24, I hit my first like thousand dollars day. And then by like February 1st, I hit $100,000 in sales right around like 35 to 40 days.
- [06:49]
B
I mean, after coming from a background where you didn't really have any money, you've tried drop tripping on a number of occasions. It's failed. You've lost money, you've been in and out of a job. You hit 100k. Like, how? What is going through your mind?
- [07:07]
A
Crazy. At that moment. Like, for one, you know, I was just like, I can't believe I did it. And you know, you get that little ADD feeling where you're like, okay, I put my mind towards something. I did it. Now if I put my mind towards something again, I know I can accomplish it again. So it was crazy. I mean, I made like $20,000 profit off of it. But it's funny because, like, between February 1st and like March 1st, I lost like 19,000 of that profit because I didn't like, treat the business like a business. I didn't know how to treat the business like a business. It all scaled so fast. So I was like getting chargebacks and like orders not being sent out. I didn't know how to handle fulfillment. So so, like, I came up, but I ended up going from 20,000 profit back down to $1,000 in like less than 30 days. Cause I just didn't know how to treat the business the right way.
- [07:53]
B
Okay, so what was the one that hit for you where you were like, okay, I've kind of figured this out to some degree. I'm not gonna lose the entirety of my profit.
- [08:02]
A
So this is a crazy story, but basically, like, from that moment, like when I got all those chargebacks, that Shopify store completely shut down. Like, Shopify was like, we're shutting the store down. You didn't treat it the right way. And I was back down to square. I started this business called Lavish Moms. I was like, I'm gonna start a new business, A new Shopify store called Lavish Moms. I'm sell baby stuff. Cause I always see baby stuff going crazy. And then I decided to move apartments. I got an eviction Notice on my door. And I was like, I kind of have to leave at this point cause I don't have money. So I moved into a new apartment. And then two weeks after that, a crane fell on my apartment complex, and it killed, like five people inside. It was like $700 million in damage. Red Cross flew in. They put us at a church across the street. We're all sleeping in sleeping bags. Like 200 people are sleeping on the floor inside of this church. I have lavish moms still at this time because I was selling, you know, the baby hipsy carriers, but they weren't doing anything. And I see all these moms in this room, and I'm like, looking at the babies, and the babies are all sleeping on top of the mom's chest because they didn't bring sleeping bags for the babies. They only brought it for adults. And I don't know how it ended up working as crazy as it did, but I saw an ad show up that night for a portable baby bed, and I was like, no. It just popped up, like on my newsfeed. Someone was already running ads for it.
- [09:20]
B
Wow.
- [09:20]
A
And I was like. It was like 3 o' clock in the morning. I'm like, there's no way that I just found this, because I know that this could solve a problem for the people in here. But also I feel like this could solve a problem for people around the world, you know? So I put it on, you know, that same store I was running, which was lavish moms. And you know, first month, from June 3rd to, like, June 31st, I did like 250,000 in sales. Then month two, about 350,000 of sales. Month three, 400,000 in sales. And then within six months, did $1.8 million from zero. And, yeah, my life completely changed forever. Went from sleeping on the church floor and having nothing to my name to still having nothing to my name but crazy amount of money, you know, because I just, like, invested all my money back into, you know, building this business up over that six months. So I was like, sleeping in an apartment. Still no furniture, still no bed, still no anything. I remember, like, getting in trouble for, like, going downstairs to the pool and, like, taking some of their pool chairs so I could have somewhere to sit in my apartment. But literally those six months, I was just grinding, like, not even a bed. Yeah. And then did that 1.8 million. And then, you know, that's kind of like the first big moment in my dropshipping career.
- [10:32]
B
Wow, that's an insane story when you tell it. Are you like, I almost can't believe that this happened to me.
- [10:39]
A
I can just visualize it. I can just see it. Like, there's clips of me being on the news, like, with the crane falling and just being like, I'm at the lowest moment of my life, and I still have those clips. Like, I have the clips of me inside of that church, like, sleeping on the floor. And sometimes it's just crazy to me, but I knew the type of person I was, and I was at that moment, like, in Texas, by myself. I didn't have friends, I didn't have family. I didn't know anybody in the entire state, let alone the city I was in. So I think it was, like, really crazy, you know, in that moment. But I was blessed enough where I couldn't really, like, think about it too much. I just had to make something work. I mean, I was already at the lowest point. So, you know, I do look back now, and I'm very blessed for how the situation went down, though.
- [11:21]
B
Urgency is a big motivator.
- [11:24]
A
Desperation, you know, Desperation is the word, for sure.
- [11:28]
B
Yeah. You're like, what other choice do I have? My back's up against the wall. I gotta make this work. Wow. And you parlay that into 1.8 million dol over six months, you said, right?
- [11:38]
A
From zero.
- [11:39]
B
When you don't have any money and you come into that kind of money, obviously, like, the inclination can be like, well, let me spend it. Like, I haven't had. I haven't had money to spend. Right. But like, you, it sounds like you didn't do that.
- [11:53]
A
I actually didn't do that at all. The first thing that I spent with the money was I got an Airbnb to make me more money. So I got, like, an Airbnb. I bought a king mattress for that Airbnb before I had a mattress for my own house. So, you know, my. I was so frugal with money. I was so afraid at that moment to lose money, and I didn't think I had, like, you know, the lifestyle that so many people portray when they make success at that moment. Don't get me wrong, like, I made around $400,000 profit off of that 1.8 million. Like, my life changed. I went from a thousand dollars to 400,000 in, you know, six months. But I was just like, how could I go out here and spend all this money if I don't have a bed, I don't have clothes, I don't have anything. So really, within those first six months of making all that money, I was just, like, getting silverware and, like, getting dishes and getting, like, things just to survive and then investing it in other opportunities, like Airbnb.
- [12:43]
B
At that time, you weren't spending it on bottle service at the club.
- [12:46]
A
I wish I was. I wish I was. Got to live a little bit. But after, you know, the growth that happened after that, you know, I definitely got to live my best life for sure.
- [12:55]
B
Okay, so, like, since then, you've had sort of like a legendary career in dropshipping. What have been some of your biggest wins?
- [13:04]
A
The biggest wins is that, I mean, I own a education and software company. It's called Supreme Ecom. And we teach people how to start, build, and run profitable E commerce businesses. We guarantee all of our clients $10,000 in 90 days because we know we can do it. We've changed over, you know, thousands of people's lives. We made $50 million in student results. I've been able to make over $10 million in results for myself. We built a, you know, a huge headquarters in the middle of Dallas, around 13,000 square feet. We have all of our employees in house. I've been able to build something that is greater than me. Been able to not just change, you know, students lives and the people I've been able to work with. I've been able to change my life as well. And, you know, the people that have been a part of the journey. You know, I've invested in so many other avenues of business. I travel a lot. I see the world. I mean, I. My life has completely changed forever. But the biggest thing is, is the impact that has had on other people's lives, I think is kind of what has made the biggest part of this journey the most rewarding.
- [14:07]
B
You were dropshipping for years before Supreme E. Com came to be. Did you always have the inclination that you wanted to teach?
- [14:16]
A
I had no inclination of teaching, but, like, to go back to that same story of when I bought that mentorship that failed me at the very beginning. It was like I had this little drive behind me that I was like, if I ever do get to the point of teaching, I know I just want to do it a thousand times better than the situation I just got put in. And I think that kind of lit a fire in me. Drop shipping has always been my main focus. E commerce and running the brands that I run have always been my main focus. But I was just like, you know, I've always been in situations where I'm like, if I can allow others to not have to go through the same thing I did, how can I be able to support them along their journey through teaching, through, you know, the lessons of things that I've gone through for myself. So I didn't have the motive to start Supreme E. Com, but I had the drive of knowing what I went through. And you know, honestly, Supreme E Comm got built by people just asking me over and over and over again to learn from me. I probably received over a thousand requests, a thousand DMs, a thousand emails of like, please can we work together? Please can you teach me? Please can you do this? And, you know, I shut everybody off for the whole entire first year. And I told everybody, you know, I'm only going to do drop shipping. And that was kind of what my main focus was. And, you know, that's what all I did in 2019 and 2020. And I was like, but what I can do for you guys is, you know, I'll start a YouTube channel and I'll just document my full journey. I'll show you guys me scaling real products in real time. And that's just kind of what I can do for the people. Because I know I see a demand, like, and I don't know how to service that demand besides providing value. So that's kind of what gave me the initiative to start the YouTube channel. But then the YouTube channel then blew up the demand even way more. And so I was kind of like almost not forced to start Supreme Con, but it like felt like right in my lap.
- [15:55]
B
Because at a certain point you're putting out these YouTube videos and people are like, I'm desirous of more. One on one mentorship.
- [16:04]
A
Yeah, I mean, I was. Every YouTube video was like, I'm just going to walk you through how I just scaled a brand from 0 to 300,000 in the last 30 days. I'm going to show you my product, I'm going to show you my ads. I'm going to show you every single thing that I'm doing. And I mean, these YouTube videos are going to be super easy for me because all I have to do is just talk about the things that I'm doing. So, you know, I started doing that and then January 5, 2020, when I dropped my first YouTube video, I started taking some calls. Like in February or march, people started DMing me, like, will you take a couple calls with me? I was like, yeah, be like $25. I'll do like $25, like $50 for a call. And then that just blew up. I was, you know, averaging probably In May about 40 to 60 calls a week. And I was just like, wow, like this has completely kind of taken over my life. I am still drop shipping, trying to run brands, but now I'm trying to manage like 50 calls a week. On top of that, I need help, you know, so like Supreme E Comm got built by me just calling one of my best friends at that time and saying, hey, like, I know you live in Kansas City right now. I moved to Dallas from Kansas City as well. My life changed when I moved here. You're working at topgolf right now. I just need you to move to Dallas, move in with me and like, help me build this up because I can't take these calls myself. So he moved down to Dallas. I just taught him everything that I knew. And then he started servicing, you know, some of the clients that I had. And from there I was doing long distance with my fiance at that moment. I flew to St. Louis where she was and she had a roommate that she was living with at the time. And I just asked her and her roommate like, hey, me and my friend can't keep up with these calls either. Can you guys help us? Like, can you move to Dallas and help us too? They're like, sure. So they packed everything, moved to Dallas and then us four basically started building up the company from that point. And yeah, like we just sat in the middle area in the common space and no days off for like nine to 10 months and we were able to build Supreme Dropshipping.
- [17:54]
B
Sounds simple on its face. It's like, find a product, sell it. You don't have to hold the inventory, right? Like it feels pretty low risk, but you didn't hit it right away with your, with your first product or even your second product. Like you've become a master at being able to like read the tea leaves and see things. Like, what has it taught you about the nature of consumer goods and what consumers actually value?
- [18:20]
A
For one, like our opinions just don't matter at all. It's only about what the consumer wants and what their needs are and what problem that you can solve for them or how can you enhance their life on a day to day basis. You know better. You know, majority of the products that I sell are typically women's products, but every product that I sell solves a problem. And all I do is just see the products that are already working for other people in the market. I look through the comments, I look through the reviews, I look through the Amazon reviews and I just really understand who the avatar behind that product is. And what their needs and desires are. Once I understand exactly how to enhance their life and solve the problem that they have the most, you know, it's a gold mine at that point, because then all you have to do is just provide the solution to the people who are already wanting the solution or don't know that they need it until you provide it to them. So product market fit is extremely important, but being able to know the person behind the product, I think is the most important.
- [19:10]
B
You built up this YouTube following. You had sort of an audience that you could also tap insights from. But generally speaking, you were gleaning those consumer insights by going and reading reviews of those products being sold elsewhere to try to figure out, like, is it kind of doing what it's advertising?
- [19:27]
A
Yeah. I mean, I'm looking on AliExpress, Amazon, Pinterest, Red Reddit, like Facebook, TikTok. I'm reading all these comments. I start an Excel sheet, and I would just write down all the emotions and pain points on the left column, and then I would on the right column, tally up how many times I see that. And basically, if it's like, fear or if it's like wanting more out of life or it's, you know, I want to feel beauty again or whatever the fear that the people have or the problem that they need solved. Once I saw whatever angle had the most tallies, that was the angle that I was just going to exploit. And that's kind of like how I, you know, basically push out every product still to this day.
- [20:02]
B
Why? Mostly women's products.
- [20:04]
A
Women love to buy things online.
- [20:06]
B
I mean, you guys buying things online
- [20:08]
A
by 80% of the customers online are definitely women. And, you know, I feel like as men, you kind of have to convince them to buy. Yeah, Women. It's like, girl, like, you didn't furnish
- [20:18]
B
your apartment for months.
- [20:19]
A
Yeah, like, I'm very minimalist. I think a lot of men are usually minimalist. And, you know, I know women are those impulse buyers and they're the people who will continue keep buying from you as well. So I've always just been really focused on the women market since I started.
- [20:32]
B
I mean, there's people right now who say dropshipping is dead in 2026.
- [20:37]
A
Yeah.
- [20:39]
B
Where do you think that sentiment comes from?
- [20:41]
A
I think it's a sentiment of what sometimes what people see online of, like, any type of these industries, of dropshipping, crypto stocks that you can make all this money online. And with the new age of influencers and seeing this lifestyle that other people want so Bad. They see it as like, oh wow, if they can do it, I can do it too. And they think it's easy. So, you know, they go start the, you know, drop shipping store and they think within 10 days they're going to be a multimillionaire. And you know, that's not the truth. I mean, dropshipping, like any business has to be treated like a real business. And it takes, you know, understanding your systems, your processes, product market fit, like you mentioned, customer avatars, understanding the whole nine yards of how to run a, an e commerce business. You learn marketing, advertising, you learn like how to be able to tap into different customer insights. You learn so much about how to run a business with drop shipping and you have to be willing to put in the work. And you know, something I tell all my students and something I want, you know, the message to be clear is that drop shipping is not the end point. Is drop shipping dead? No. But is drop shipping the business model that's going to be, you know, just making you billions of dollars for the rest of your life? Yes. But you have to constantly go in a cycle. Dropshipping is the vehicle to brand ownership. And that's the thing that we teach to all of our students is like we will find a product, you will be able to sell it without owning any inventory or buying any inventory. We will scale you up 10 to $50,000 in revenue and you will make profit from this. But this is going to die off if you don't treat this like a real brand and do the things that go into creating, you know, custom products and getting the right type of, you know, email and SMS and marketing, retargeting and all the things that go into creating, you know, this into a legitimate brand and you know, that's kind of like what the game is. You know, drop shipping is the vehicle to brand ownership. You can go out there and try to start a brand right now and you have to buy inventory upfront, you have to get pallets of inventory. You have to spend all this money on trying to understand the product market. You have to do all this R and D to understand who your customer is. I mean, you're looking at 20 to $30,000 upfront to try to start a brand that you don't even know if the product can sell. Or you can start drop shipping, do it with low risk, build it up and then understand how to transfer that from a drop shipping store to a brand so that you don't stay in a cycle of just trying to find new products. But you're working off the product that's already worked the best and turning it to something that can make you money for the rest of your life.
- [23:07]
B
And do you have students that have parlayed their drop shipping careers into brands?
- [23:13]
A
Thousands. Yeah, thousands. I mean, that's what we teach. Like our, our whole mentorship is we guarantee you to make $10,000 in 90 days. Because for us internally that $10,000 number is like, yeah, it's gonna be great. If you make $10,000, we know that that will help your life out. But at the end of the day, we also know that that's a validation standpoint for us to say we can probably get good enough data, know who our customer is, we know how we can probably negotiate better pricing with our suppliers, we know we can get better product inventory and fulfillment and things like that. We have a stable business at that point. So turning it into a legitimate brand is a lot easier at that moment. And rather than starting it from zero
- [23:49]
B
and turning it into an actual legitimate brand doesn't always mean necessarily then manufacturing their own product.
- [23:57]
A
No, I mean it's like, you know, if you're doing paid advertising, we're going to do organic marketing. If you're not doing customer service, we're going to hire customer service. If you don't have a system for retargeting, we're going to build up your retargeting. If you need to be able to find better upsell products, complimentary upsells or put it in a TikTok shop or you know, spread out the ways that you're doing mass distribution of marketing. You know, there's multiple ways to turn it into a brand. But one of the things that we like to do is definitely get like a custom product, turn into a custom product and doesn't mean that it's a new product. It's just like we're adding in our tags, we're adding in our labels, we're making the box that comes with the product around our brand and our logos and making it unique to us and then just making the store, you know, not like a general drop shipping store, but making it into like a one product market, you know, type of shopify store with upsells that are complimentary to that main product that are within that same type of niche. So it's just transforming it from like a generic general type of thing to a one product, you know, precise market fit towards the product that you already know is selling.
- [24:59]
B
There can be a bit of a pervasive idea within the dropshipping universe that like you can get in for $0. You know, realistically, how much startup capital do you need?
- [25:10]
A
Can I get in with $0? But I will say like, compared to like 2020, you can get in for a lot less. Like I would say you realistically need around. I always tell people, like 400 to $800 if you're going to do it with some type of guidance. If you're going to do it by yourself with no guidance, you got to have some room for, you know, mistakes. So I would say anywhere between like 1500 to 3000. But compared to a regular brick and mortar business, that is extremely low cost and the risk is a whole lot less as well. I have an AI store builder software that builds out Shopify stores for a hundred percent free. We have product research softwares that you know, can be able to find win products and you know, for like only 20, $30. Shopify gives you three months for $1. The resources are so like, like available. You just have to know where to find them. But yeah, you can definitely get started anywhere between that like 4 to $800 range with the right guidance.
- [26:06]
B
What parts of the learning curve do you think catch most beginners off guard?
- [26:12]
A
Definitely that content is king and data is queen. And I think people spend a lot of time over strategizing the perfect Shopify store or trying to find the perfect product. But they don't understand that step one of even getting traffic to your website is through the ads that you're running and the content that you're putting out. So you know, the main thing, I mean, I tell all our students, like, if there's anywhere to put 80 to 90% of your brain activity with running this business is with the content that you're running and knowing how to tap into the emotions of the people who are watching on the other side, how to hook them within the first three seconds, how to make them actually click that Shop now button and visit to your website. Content is the number one way to be successful with drop shipping. And a lot of people think it's about finding the perfect product. But at the end of the day, the products that we're choosing, I mean, with the right type of validation behind them, I mean, these products have worked for other people. They can easily work for you. That's not the problem. The problem is how do you actually get customers to trust you, visit your website and actually buy from you. That's where kind of the big drop off comes.
- [27:11]
B
This is storytelling.
- [27:13]
A
Yeah, the storytelling. And like I said, your customer Avatar, you should know, like, every single thing about this person. I could tell you right now for the products I'm selling, their hobbies, if they. If they have siblings, what they do on the weekends, like, where they live at, like, what do they eat or the dietary. I can tell you every single thing about these people. Like, I'm their best friend because I understand, like, if I know them just as well as they know themselves, I can talk to them in the way that they want to be talked to.
- [27:39]
B
Is. Is failure inevitable in this business?
- [27:42]
A
No, no. Failure is going to happen, and it's going to happen in every business. But I do think that failure is the key to success, and I think you should be yearning for failure no matter what business you start, even if it's drop shipping. Mentorships would definitely help you avoid failure. But the biggest successes I've ever had is from me taking the biggest losses I've ever had. So, you know, don't be afraid of failure. It's going to happen in this business. But use those as monument monumental moments for your life of saying, what did I just learn? And how do I never repeat the same problem again? And if you kind of keep that mentality, you can create amazing things in life.
- [28:15]
B
I think so many of us would maybe go through, like, a fraction of what you went through and want to throw in the towel or say, you know, forget it. Like, I'll just go get a job and try to work my way up the ladder. Like, did that every. Like, did that cross your mind?
- [28:32]
A
I'm not gonna lie. It never crossed my mind. Not once. I mean, I remember, like, my mom sending me Glassdoor and indeed applications, like, you need to apply here. You need to apply. Did that for the first, like, three years of entrepreneurship. I'm like, mom, I'm not going to get a job, and I need you to stop, you know, doing that. Now. My mom, she is fully taken care of. All of her expenses are paid for, and she definitely sees, like, oh, wow, like, my son's definitely been able to make it. But no, I think that, like, at the end of the day, I just knew my why, you know, and my why was creating generational wealth and, you know, breaking the chains of, you know, generational curses that my family kind of has had at that moment of, you know, not being happy, being depressed, working jobs that they hate, barely getting by, living paycheck to paycheck. I mean, I'm the baby of my family, so all I did was just look up every day and be like, okay, what Are they doing that I don't want to do for myself? And, you know, I knew even in those low moments that if I went into the direction that they went into, I'm going to be in the same position that they're in, which is being unhappy. And, you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. And I felt like I was going insane if I was going to go in that direction. So I knew my. Why create generational wealth? And at the same time, like, when I started taking these calls with students and. And dropping YouTube videos, and I'm getting these people, like, sending me messages of, like, bro, you just changed my life. Bro, you just helped me, like, buy my mom a house or, yo, I'm in my third trimester of, you know, being pregnant. I'm sitting here delivering the baby, and I'm hearing Shopify notifications going off, and it's like, the best day of my whole life. That is the fuel. Like, that was the fuel. And, you know, like I said earlier, being able to achieve one thing, and then you're like, okay, can I do it again? And then you do it a second time, you do it a third time, and then you just start feeling, like, almost invincible because you're like, I can do anything that I put my mind to. And that was kind of the. The moment where I knew if I flip that switch on, it doesn't matter what I go through, I can continue to keep pushing forward.
- [30:32]
B
I talk about this sometimes, but I think, like, courage is really, like, a muscle in that way. You know, it's like the first time you jump off the cliff, you're like, oh, this is terrifying. You know, like, the second time you jump off the cliff, you're like, okay, it's still really scary, but it does actually get less scary every time. And when you've had to deal with despair and build yourself back, it creates a confidence in you, right. That you're like, even. Even if things hit the fan, like, I'll be okay. I know I'll be able to, like, work through it.
- [31:01]
A
Yeah. I mean, for myself, I was just like, I know who I am, you know, like. And I think that was so important for me early on as I was like, I know who I am, and I know who I really like, what I really desire. I know who AC truly is internally. And I think that made me comfortable of, like, no matter what I go through, I'm gonna be okay. I remember, like, when I. When that crane fell and I. After about a month and a half, Went by. I'm sitting there, you know, like, moving into this brand new apartment complex. I'm going down the street, like, acting like I'm a go out to eat. And like, I'm really in there just like, trying to take some silverware because I don't even have any silverware for my house to even eat. And like, all these, like, moments. I can recap. I just was never embarrassed. I never was, like, low on myself. I never felt bad. It was just a moment of just like, okay, this is the current situation. I already know where I'm going to be. Like, I always told myself I was going to be a millionaire. I always told myself I was going to be successful. So it just was a matter of when, you know, And I think that that was very easy for me to say, okay, I'm not there now, but I'm like, it's gonna happen. And I would just tell myself that over and over again to the point where I truly just convinced myself, you know, of like, oh, it's gonna happen. Oh, it's gonna happen. And then when it happened, I was like, oh, I told you, you know, I told you it was gonna happen. And that's kind of like that mentality of no matter what I was going through, I always stall, like a deeper vision of where I was going to go.
- [32:22]
B
It's actually pretty spiritual, right? Like, they say that this is like one of the keys to manifestation is like, you have to feel it inside yourself as though it's already happened.
- [32:30]
A
100 for it to come to fruition.
- [32:32]
B
Like, you were just doing that.
- [32:33]
A
I have literally pictures of my first apartment, the apartment that I end up getting robbed in. Like, they came in, they stole everything, right? The only thing they did not take was my whole apartment, right, Was completely filled with notebook paper. The walls I had, I was just hammering notebook paper into the walls. Every single place in the apartment. Said, you will be great, you will be successful. You will be the first millionaire in your family. I'm just writing it down, hammering it into the wall. So, like, the whole apartment complex, wherever I walked, if I turned my head, I saw, like, what I was trying to achieve. Because again, I was out here in Texas by myself, so I didn't have anybody to motivate me. And I was like, okay. Like, I read this, like, little book of like, you gotta, you know, push yourself to be great. And I was like, okay, I'll just make every wall in my whole apartment, just everything that I'm trying to achieve so I can't see anything but where I'm trying to get to. And I think that, like, made me obsessed, like, at that moment. And that was kind of like the rocket at the beginning to really shoot off early on.
- [33:29]
B
Oh, my God. Those robbers must have broken and been like, whose place are we in?
- [33:34]
A
No, they. They were crazy, though. There's people. I mean, they stole, like, canned food. They stole my underwear. They stole, like, literally, the reason why I got fired from that job is because I got suspended because I told them I couldn't come to work because they stole my work clothes. Like, they stole every shirt, every pair of pants. They stole my socks. I called the job, and I was like, yo. Like, I can't make it to work. I don't have clothes. And they're like, well, you're in your 90 days. And, you know, and when you're in your first 90 days, you have no PTO or any sick days. And I was like, but I can't make it to work. And they said, if you don't make it to work, you're going to get suspended. And so I got suspended. And then when I came back, they just basically, like, only gave me a month, and then. And then I was out of there. So, yeah, the robbers were probably like, man, where the hell are we? Yeah, where's this guy? Yeah, what is this man doing? Because I was definitely in there looking a little crazy.
- [34:21]
B
Your dad. Your son's four?
- [34:24]
A
Yeah, my son's four. About to be four.
- [34:26]
B
If you're starting to teach him about this at all, like, what are. What are you. What do you want to be teaching him about? Money and building for yourself?
- [34:33]
A
The main things is, like, just being a really good person. Like, that's the main thing that I think I didn't get as much when I was a kid. You know, I ask him the same three questions every night. I'm like, what is integrity? And he's, like, doing the right thing when no one's watching. I'm like, what is confidence? He's, like, believing in myself. I'm like, okay, well, what is being a leader? Thinking for myself. And he says that I just hit him with these three things every day, all day. And I just, like, really want him to be a really good person, a better person than I ever was. Being in an environment where he can grow and not have to worry about the complaints. See his parents, like, together and actually, like. And I've never seen a relationship ever work out in my whole life. I've never seen a marriage ever work out in my whole life. So just breaking everything that I've seen and passing that down to, like I said, you know, not drive myself insane, you know, do the same thing, expect different things, is I don't want him to, you know, ever have to grow up in the same type of environment that I have, but still value the fact that you got to get something out of this life yourself. I'm not going to just give him the easiest handout. I'm not going to be like, you're going to be rich because I'm rich. No, you, my friend, are the brokest friend I have. But daddy's rich. You are broke. And, you know, at the end of the day, like, I'm gonna support you to get there, but you're still gonna have to learn how to get there on your own. And, you know, that's kind of like the give and take that I'm willing to kind of do with that. But the main thing is just making him a really good person.
- [35:51]
B
He's gotta have a little bit of that desperation, you know?
- [35:54]
A
Yeah. Gotta be a dog. You gotta be a dog, man. I need it. I need it.
- [35:58]
B
Well, tell me about the hope curve.
- [36:00]
A
So this is something that we have put inside of our mentorship program because we have a thing called the milestone tracker. So the North Star OKR or Bay KPI for our business is the percentage of students who are on track with our milestone tracker. So I told you, you know, we make them $10,000 in 90 days. So our milestone tracker looks like zero to day 30. On day 30, they make their first sale. Day 45, they make $500. Day 60, they make $2,000. Day 75, they make $5,000 and day or $7,500, and then day 90, they make $10,000. So the hope curve comes in where it matches that milestone tracker to understand when their hope is going to be the highest and when it's going to be the lowest and how do we provide the support to them during those moments. So we understand that hope is going to be the highest. Day one, like, when you walk in this mentorship or you start drop shipping, your hope is through the roof. But then you got to go through product research, and then you got to build a store, and then you got to make ads, and, you know, you start slowly going down and you're like, man, this is a lot of work. So we understand the mentality of we week two and week three is, yo, these people are going to be going through a lot and, you know, their hope might start going down, but Then they make their first sale and it starts picking up. So, you know, we understand where at in their journey over, you know, the 90 days of working with them and, and forward, how their mentality is, how they're going to be feeling. And then we just touch the, the points differently during the different hopes. So if we know they're going to be going down in the hope curve because of all the work they need to do, we up the support so we do more check ins, we do more calls, we do more support just to make sure that we can mitigate, you know, and get them into that point where, you know, they're constantly, you know, going through this hope curve but at the end, you know, they're still going to be going up.
- [37:40]
B
It's a good piece of advice for like any kind of entrepreneur or founder, right? Like I think any founder's journey kind of goes through those ebbs and flows. We all, we all need like a supreme ECOM team to be able to like get on the phone with us and give us the motivational speech in those moments you need it.
- [37:57]
A
And I mean, I tell our students all the time, like the whole curve is not to tell you that the ups and downs are not going to happen and that's just going to only be ups. Like I'm telling you, it's going to be downs. But the analogy I always tell my students all the time is like, if you're on a heartbeat sensor and you're seeing up and downs, what does that mean? It means you're alive. If it's flatlined, what does that mean? It means you're, you know, you're dead. We don't want you to be flatlined. We want you to go through the ups and downs, we want you to experience it. But at the same time we want to provide you the support to make those like risk or make the things that kind of lower that hope curve down a little bit easier to handle. But yeah, like, it's a part of the journey. You have to go through the ups and downs no matter if you have guidance or not, because that's what's going to form you to being that resilient entrepreneur. At the, at the end of the
- [38:39]
B
day, what's one piece of advice about dropshipping that people should absolutely not follow?
- [38:43]
A
One, taking advice from people that are not doing the things that you want to be doing in this world. You know, I see how YouTube is categorized right now. I see a little bit of how TikTok and Instagram is with some of these Drop shippers. And you know, none of these people are actually doing it. Like they maybe have had success with dropshipping one time. One of our core brand promises that we give out to all of our students is that we practice what we preach. Meaning that I would never stop dropshipping and I will never stop running the E commerce brands. The E commerce brands, they basically run on autopilot. But I start drop shipping probably every month now. I start a brand new store, I started a brand new product, I document it, I put it on my YouTube channel and I'm like, watch me scale the store from like brand new pixel, brand new product, brand new store and show you guys that drop shipping can still work in today's day and age. So you need to take advice from people who are legitimately doing it, that you have vetted, that you've done research on that can prove these type of results to you. At the very beginning, if you failed two or three times because you are listening from people who are giving you outdated strategies from 2020 or 2021, that hope curve is going to go down really, really quick and it's not fair to you, you know, so be careful who you take advice from. And then secondly, I would just say be ready to treat your business like it's a real business. This is not a get rich quick scheme. There is going to be work that's going to be put into it. You're going to have to, if you're working at 9 to 5, this is going to be your 5 to 9 or your 5 to 12am even. And you're going to have to balance that and you're going to have to put in that work. But there's always that light at the end of the tunnel. And if you stay consistent with anything, you will see success.
- [40:17]
B
You're a delight.
- [40:19]
A
Appreciate it.
- [40:19]
B
Thanks for being here.
- [40:20]
A
Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
- [40:22]
B
And thanks to all of you for tuning in. Be sure to hit that, that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and we'll see you next time.