The Dropshipping Method That Turns First-Time Sellers Into Million-Dollar Founders

20:19AC Hampton: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 to keep buying from you as well. So I've always just been really focused on the women, Mark, since I started. I mean, there's people right now who say dropshipping is dead in 2026. Yeah. Where do you think that sentiment comes from? I think it's the 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 a 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.

20:58AC Hampton:And they think it's easy. So, you know, they go start the, you know, dropshipping 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 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 dropshipping and you have to be willing to put in the work.

21:33AC Hampton:And, you know, something I tell all my students and something I want, you know, the message to be clear is that dropshipping is not the end point. Is dropshipping dead? No, but is dropshipping 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 on 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 ,000 to$50 ,000 in revenue, and you will make profit from this.

22:08AC Hampton: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 and marketing and 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 up front. You have to get pallets of inventory. You have to spend all this money on trying to understand the product market.

22:40AC Hampton:You have to do all this R &D to understand who your customer is. I mean, you're looking at$20 ,000 to$30 ,000 up front to try to start a brand that you don't even know if the product can sell. Or you can start dropshipping, do it with low risk, build it up, and then understand how to transfer that from a dropshipping 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 turned it into something that can make you money for the rest of your life. And do you have students that have parlayed their dropshipping careers into brands?

23:13AC Hampton:Thousands. Yeah, thousands. I mean, that's what we teach. Like 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 going to 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 to 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.

23:42AC Hampton:So turning it into a legitimate brand is a lot easier at that moment rather than starting it from zero. And turning it into an actual legitimate brand doesn't always mean necessarily then manufacturing their own product. 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 spread out the ways that you're doing mass distribution of marketing, there's multiple ways to turn it into a brand.

24:20AC Hampton:But one of the things that we like to do is definitely get a custom product, turn it into a custom product. And it 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 dropshipping store, but making it into like a one product market, you know, type of Shopify store with upsells that are complementary 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.

24:58There can be a bit of a pervasive idea within the dropshipping universe that like you can get in for zero dollars, you know, realistically, how much startup capital do you need?

25:10AC Hampton:You cannot get in with zero dollars. But I will say like compared to like 2020, you can get in for a lot less like nowadays. 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$1 ,500 to$3 ,000. 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 100 % free.

25:44AC Hampton:We have product research softwares that can be able to find winning products and for like only$20,$30, Shopify gives you three months for$1. The resources are so like available. You just have to know where to find them. But yeah, you can definitely get started anywhere between that like$400 to$800 range with the right guidance. What parts of the learning curve do you think catch most beginners off guard? 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.

26:28AC Hampton:So, you know, the main thing, I mean, I tell all our students, like, if there's anywhere to put 80 to 90 percent of your brain activity with running this business, It's 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 dropshipping. 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.

27:02AC Hampton: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. It's the storytelling. Yeah, the storytelling. And like I said, your customer avatar. You should know like every single thing about this person. I can tell you right now for the products I'm selling, their hobbies, 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.

27:39Is failure inevitable in this business?

27:42AC Hampton: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 dropshipping. 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 monumental moments for your life of saying, what did I just learn? How do I never repeat the same problem again? And if you kind of keep that mentality, you can create amazing things in life.

28:15I 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 ever, like, did that cross your mind?

28:31AC Hampton: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 here. She 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.

29:18AC Hampton: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 dropping YouTube videos, and I'm getting these people like sending me messages of like, bro, you just changed my life.

29:54AC Hampton: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 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.

30:32I 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 if things hit the fan, like, I'll be okay. I know I'll be able to like work through it.

31:01AC Hampton: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 going to 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 going to 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.

31:38AC Hampton: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 going to happen. Like, 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 going to happen.

32:11AC Hampton:Oh, it's going to happen. And then when it happened, I was like, oh, I told you, you know, I told you it's going to happen. And that's kind of like that mentality of, you know, no matter what I was going through, I always saw like a deeper vision of where I was going to go. 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. A hundred percent. For it to come to fruition. Like you were just doing that. I have literally pictures of my first apartment, the apartment that I end up getting robbed in.

32:37AC Hampton:Like they came in and stole everything, right? The only thing they did not take was my whole apartment was completely filled with notebook paper, the walls. 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 walls. So the whole apartment complex, wherever I walked, if I turned my head, I saw 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 uh early on oh my god those robbers must have broken and been like whose place are we in no they they were crazy though there's people I mean it's still 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 I stole all 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.

34:05AC Hampton:And so I got suspended. And then when I came back, they just basically like only gave me a month and then I was out of there. So yeah, the robbers were probably like, man, where the hell are we? Yeah, what is this man doing? Because I was definitely in there looking a little crazy. Your dad, your son's four? Yeah, my son's four. About to be four. If you're starting to teach him about this at all, like what are you, what do you want to be teaching him about money and building for yourself? 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.

34:39AC Hampton:And, 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.

35:08AC Hampton: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.

35:38AC Hampton:And, you know, at the end of the day, like I'm going to support you to get there, but you're still going to 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. It's got to have a little bit of that desperation. Yeah, gotta be a dog. Gotta be a dog, man. I need it. I need it. Tell me about the hope curve. 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 big KPI for our business is the percentage of students who are on track with our milestone tracker.

36:13AC Hampton: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 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 dropshipping, your hope is through the roof.

36:50AC Hampton: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 week two and week three is, you know, 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 forward How their mentality is how they're going to be feeling and then we just touch the the points differently during the different hope 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.

37:40It'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 need like a supreme e-com team to be able to like get on the phone with us and give us the motivational speech in those moments.

37:56AC Hampton:You need it. And I mean, I tell our students all the time, like the hope 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.

38:29AC Hampton: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 end of the day. What's one piece of advice about dropshipping that people should absolutely not follow? 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 dropshippers. And, you know, none of these people are actually doing it.

38:57AC Hampton: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 dropshipping probably every month now. I start a brand new store, I start 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 dropshipping can still work in today's day and age.

39:28AC Hampton: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 fail 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. So be careful who you take advice from. And then secondly, I'll 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.

40:02AC Hampton:You're going to have to, If you're working a nine to five, this is going to be your five to nine or your five to 12 a.m. 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. You're a delight. Appreciate it. Thanks for being here. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. And thanks to all of you for tuning in. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And we'll see you next time.

40:33Thank you.