AC Hampton: How Dropshipping Changed My Life
There's nothing that can change a life like a good idea. Some are the small everyday ideas that push people's lives in a slightly different direction. Others are big ideas; epiphanies, which make us switch paths drastically. Whether they give us an entirely new perspective on things or make a tiny difference that counts for a lot, ideas undeniably shape our lives.
For AC Hampton, the idea coming increasingly into his mind concerns fear of failure.
More precisely, the need to ignore it.
"People shouldn't be afraid of failure because when they are, they keep putting themselves in a position never to get started with the things that are the most important to them," he says.
The example he offers is his dropshipping career. "I was too afraid to do it. I didn't want to lose money. I didn't want my mom to be mad thinking I'll forego traditional college education. But, mostly, I was scared of betting everything I had on myself."
The moment he overcame that fear and did it, dropshipping changed everything for him.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
AC Hampton was no stranger to starting his own business. The first one he created was a lawn business at 12 years old. Besides providing him the valuable experience of what it feels like to earn money, it also taught him a thing or two about advertising – most notably that light poles and small paper ads are a match made in heaven when operating without a budget.
The next venture he started got him even closer to dropshipping. Looking to earn some money as he was getting ready to go off to college, he decided to open a sneaker business.
"I built a page on Instagram called Sneakers Labs, where I'd put a bunch of shoes," he explains.
"I was trying to stay ahead of trends, people would even preorder shoes with me, and they'd get them when the shoe was released."
Dropshipping
What's interesting about his sneaker business is that AC Hampton set it up as a dropshipping business without even knowing it. He worked with a supplier for the sneakers, who also handled fulfillment, sending the shoes directly to the buyers. AC Hampton's part was getting people to visit that Instagram profile.
Still, it took some time and unexpected and tragic circumstances before AC Hampton invested any serious effort into dropshipping.
Having tried it once and failed, he wasn't planning on returning to it. But when college ended, he moved towns and lost the job he secured there. Dropshipping ads kept popping up all over the Internet, so he decided to give it a go.
Then fate struck, and he lost the little money he had in a robbery. At that point, he decided to go all in on dropshipping, scored a winning product, and followed it up with six months of – losers.
"I went right back to square one, with nothing to my name," he recalls.
"And right when I felt good about dropshipping and my approach to it, a crane fell through my apartment. The church across the street put us up. I remember there were hundreds of people sleeping on the church floor."
But he kept looking for winning products, utilizing the foundation he had built over the prior months.
Strange Inspiration
Finally, while he looked at the parents sharing the church floor with him, an idea came to him. Why not open a store in the kids' niche?
He found a kids' bed for a product, built a website around it, and the rest was, as they say, history.
"From June to December, the business made $1.7 million. My life was never the same after that," is what Hampton now says.
Dropshipping did a couple of great things for AC Hampton and his life.
For starters, it became a great source of income – eventually – once he mastered everything he needed to learn and figured out the craft of it.
Giving Back
It also allowed him to level up his career. He started Supreme Ecom, an agency where he helps others do what he did and grow their own dropshipping businesses. One of the things he likes the most about the agency is the ability to change people's lives forever, in the same way his was altered.
More importantly, it allowed him to be a stable presence in the lives of his child and fiancée. As a kid, he witnessed how difficult it can be when a parent isn't home often. It was a lonely experience growing up, with his mom having to spend half a month traveling. Now he wants to do better for his own kid.
Dropshipping gave AC Hampton the perspective to start thinking long-term, and plan for future generations. Dropshipping helps him create generational wealth, something he can pass on. A legacy and a resource that will allow for a better future for his kid.
Finally, thanks to his experience with dropshipping, he came to all those realizations about fear. And made an even longer-lasting decision.
"Knowledge is power. I was afraid at the very beginning that I would fail, but that's because I didn't understand that failure is an input necessary for success," he says. "Now, I have a different relationship with failure – if it's going to happen, let it happen. The sooner, the better. Because then you can move on to better things and bigger successes."
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
