I Lost $40,000 Dropshipping and Still Won (now I do $12k days)

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]If you've been trying to make drop shipping work for months, doing everything you've been told to do, and it still ain't working for you, then this video is for you. I spent 8 months doing the right things, spent 10k on a mentorship, lost 40k in total, and almost had zero results. And it wasn't because I wasn't smart enough, and it wasn't because I wasn't working hard enough. The strategy was dead, and no one told me. Now, in this video, I'm going to break down the full story. what I tried, what went wrong, and the thing that actually changed everything. Back in October 2024, I took the leap and I moved to Thailand with the intention of being here at least 6 months. Now, I came here with no plan, just some money behind me, and I just thought, you know what? Let's just see where life takes me. Now, I knew that I needed to make some online money, but at this point in time, I knew no one in the online space.

[00:00:53]And to be honest, I really had no direction into it. Now the thing is at this point of time I weren't broke but I was lost. I had no direction. Now the dangerous thing about that is it allows you to make expensive mistakes which I actually done. And the thing is a normal person wouldn't have made these expensive mistakes but it's all a learning curve. So we're grateful for the journey. But I'm going to show you what those expensive mistakes was and why it actually cost me not only money but nine months of doing the wrong strategies. So two months into me being in Thailand December 2024, I came across a big name in the ecom space. Now I thought this guy was legit getting good results. That was my plan.

[00:01:39]You know, he did promote the materialistic lifestyle which now looking back was a massive red flag. But the thing is, I actually genuinely thought that this guy was scaling people up in ecom. Not only scaling them up, but teaching them the skill set, you know, mindset, all of this stuff that you need to be a successful entrepreneur. Even if that's not in ecom, that's with any business. Now, I went in with high hopes thinking, you know what, this is a new venture for me.

[00:02:08]start something legit, something that can compound, something proper where I can actually scale it up, have location freedom, time freedom.

[00:02:17]And yeah, that was really my goal, just to be able to work from anywhere in the world on a laptop. Even if that was 3, four, 5 grand a month, like that was my first goal. I didn't think, you know, I need 100k months. That was also the goal, the end goal. But, you know, we don't we don't want to set our goals too high cuz, you know, we want to get into it. So, obviously, I went in with a feeling that, you know, this is going to work. High hopes and all of that.

[00:02:47]So, long story short, I joined the program December 2024, very impulsively, I must say. And this was where I messed up. I had money but no direction, no one to guide me, you know, with what mentorship's good. I literally knew no one making money online. Now, that was a bad thing at the time because it did waste me a lot of time. Obviously, I can talk about the money losses and all of that stuff, but at the end of the day, bro, the time is infinitely more valuable than the money. The 8 months I wasted is what I actually cared about most than just losing that 40k.

[00:03:23]But long story short, got into the program, you know, got connected with the videos, the community, and whatever.

[00:03:30]Now, as soon as I started watching the videos, red flags automatically started appearing. Some of these videos were from 2022.

[00:03:40]And bearing in mind, this is basically 2025 when I joined December, mid December 2024.

[00:03:48]Now, red flags started going on in my head cuz I was thinking like, how has nothing changed? Like, is this really the exact same thing? 3 years later, 2 and 1/2 years later, you're telling me that, you know, these videos are the exact same about scaling, testing. Like, I really thought, you know, is is this actually up to date? Like, I've just paid $10,000 for this one-on-one mentorship for 3 months, which is a lot of money, and the videos are that outdated. But anyways, I had high hopes and I thought, let me just do it and let's just see because I don't want to be those guys that are just quick to judgment and just say, "Oh, it doesn't work." Cuz maybe they are using the same strategy for months. Long story short, they assigned me of a one-on-one coach.

[00:04:34]He put me in the UK market, you know, got my company set up, store set up, all of that stuff. Now, even in this, think about this, right? The strategy is fashion store, very basic, test five products a day, you know, hope for winner, throw [ __ ] out of wall and hopefully something sticks.

[00:04:53]Now, I tested about 100 products and this coach never even scheduled a call with me. Like I didn't even understand the system that we're meant to have, you know, one to two calls a week. And like he didn't even get on a call with me. He didn't suggest it. It was just, you know, messaging on Slack. He would answer me like one to three times a day.

[00:05:14]Sometimes on the weekend he wouldn't even bother answering. Like it was absolutely crazy how low quality the coach was. And to pay $10,000 for a coach that doesn't even care about your success is absolutely crazy.

[00:05:31]Now on these one-on-one calls, think about it like this. We get on a call and it's pretty much a Q&A with me and him.

[00:05:39]There's no me sharing my screen, him going into my ads manager, looking at my ads, my creatives, what's working, what's not working, how can we improve.

[00:05:48]It was literally just I ask him questions and that's it. Let's say I went to the call with, you know, four questions, he answers them 10, 20 minutes and then that's it. I always ask him like, you know, do you have any tips, any advice?

[00:06:06]and he'll be like, "Not really, man."

[00:06:09]And I'm just thinking like, "What even is this, man? Like, I've paid 10K and this guy has no value to give. Like, you're meant to be a coach. You're meant to care about my success just as much as I care." But the guy didn't care whatsoever. At this stage, you know, I was a bit skeptical, thinking, "Yeah, man. This is a bit crazy." But then after about 150 products tested, I found a winner. Now at this time I was in Pquette on the beach. So you know it was good. It was a good feeling and then until this happened. So a week later the supplier sent me the quality checks. Bearing in mind this was a suede blazer. It was quite like a a high ticket. Not high ticket but you know usually ecom products you're selling 3040 $50. This one was $90, which is about $110, $120.

[00:07:05]So, this one was sort of, you know, high ticket. I pretty much scaled this up to about 7800 in budget a day. Suppliers sent me the quality checks. It was absolutely garbage. It looked nothing alike. The material, you know, nothing was alike. So, I said to them, "Find me something at least similar." They found me something that was like a 6 out of 10. So I had to literally turn off the ads. You know, being on a beach in Pquet, it kind of just ruined my little trip. But you know, we keep moving. I was talking to other people in the community and, you know, their losses. And to be honest, loads of people was going through the exact same thing as me. There was another guy from Australia I was talking to and he lost about 40,000 Australian dollars, which I believe is about 25ishk USD, maybe a bit more, maybe 30k. I'm not too sure. And he done four market switches and literally nothing. And he was basically telling me to quit. And at this point, I was already thinking of, you know, quitting and just firming the loss cuz at this point I made a little bit of profits, but you know, it was pretty much not that much to be fair. So after this, I got on a call with a coach and I was basically like to him, bro, I'll be honest. Like I don't really want to do this. Like you're not really giving me no tips. Like I I see people doing numbers, but are they like what is the secret? Cuz the thing you guys are teaching can't be the same thing that these other people making 100 2 3 500k months are doing. It didn't make sense in my head. So on the call, he pretty much said to me, you know, let's keep going and then let's do a market switch, which made no sense, bro. Like my issue was one, the product quality. Two, it's just the strategy was so [ __ ] It was very, you know, cash flowheavy. Think about testing five products a day on 50 budget. So each day I'm burning about €2300 just on ads and a lot of the products aren't even working.

[00:09:05]So at this stage we moved to the Canada market, Canadian market, sorry, and tested about 700 products, didn't work, move market again. So I lost about three bags on that. After this, he said, "You know what? Let's try Italy, a men's store, more niche down." So I thought, you know what, it makes a bit more sense. You know, niche down a bit, men's store. Of course, women's usually works better. But, you know, at the end of the day, he was the coach that said to him, "Are you sure? Like, think it's a good move?" And he said, "Yeah, let's do it.

[00:09:35]He's done it before." So, I just listened to him. You know, at the end of the day, he's the coach. That's what I'm paying for. So, I moved to the Italian market. And I did get up to 1 to 1.5K days. But the crazy thing about that was imagine doing 1.5k days in Euro and you're losing 2300 euro every day. Like I'm not even breaking even. I'm literally losing €2300.

[00:10:03]Now at this point I'm thinking how is this possible? Like and I also started to ask questions like all these guys posting their revenue how much money are they making if they're even making money? And then I basically said to the coach like, "How can we fix this?" Like, you know, I've I've got to one 1.5k days. I'm not even making profit. And he's saying, "Oh, it's cuz I'm testing a lot of products and stuff, which is understandable." But even if I tested, I stopped and went with the winners. I still would have been, you know, barely making profit if if any. So, you know, couple months went by. You know, I was doing Italian market maybe one and a half, two months and then at this point that coach actually got fired from their mentorship and then they gave me a new coach. So this new coach, he was a bit better now.

[00:10:56]Him, he just said, "Let's stop with Italy. It's obviously not working. It's not too big of a market as well." So we went back to Canada, the same country I done before. and he basically, you know, fixed up some of the store and stuff.

[00:11:10]So, we tried that, you know, same thing, bro. I think I done about 120 products.

[00:11:18]Nothing. There was one product that was performing a little bit, but I mean, bro, 120 products. Like, altogether, I tested about 600 products. Now, the method I'm doing now, bro, 10 products, you already got three to five winners, bro. It's that simple. So, this strategy never made sense. Like, why is the win rate like 1 to 2% of products? Like, that is absolute rubbish. That isn't a a sustainable business model.

[00:11:51]So after that, you know, 120 products down and I'm looking at my bank and I'm thinking, wow, like I've wasted about 30k, about4k since I've, you know, been doing this, including a mentorship, all the ad spend, you know, losing all that money, you know, imagine for eight months you're just losing.

[00:12:13]And then I was like to him, bro, I'll be honest, I can't keep doing this, man.

[00:12:16]So, I pretty much stopped what what what I was doing with them. And then this is where it got worse before it even got better. I came across another guy in their mentorship. He was supposedly doing good numbers, you know, was posting results and everything. I spoke to him a couple times before and he basically pitched me his mentorship. Like I pretty much went to him and I asked, you know, what's the secrets? Like how are you doing these numbers? you know, he he was claiming some crazy things at the time that he was doing like 40k days and, you know, couple m a month, which, you know, there was really no way that was the case. He pitched a mentorship to me. It was about €4,000, pay 1.5k up front, and then when you make profits, you know, there's no time limit on that. When you make the profits, bearing in mind, is when I would pay the rest of 2 and a halfk. So, I thought, you know what? I'm just going to go for it, man. This guy must be doing numbers. He's he's been sending his things. He even done like a success Q&A on their on their mentorship. So, all of those things are aligning and I'm thinking, "This guy has to be legit."

[00:13:25]€1.5K, about 1.3K. I said, "You know what, man?

[00:13:30]Let me just do this, bro, cuz if I keep doing the other thing, I'm just going to get screwed over." So, I joined his mentorship and yeah, that was even worse, bro. Literally all he done for for those of you that know Hike Footwear, he pretty much said to me, "Get Hike Footwear's creatives and copy them." Obviously, you know, adjust them a bit, but just copy their creatives and that was it. Now, I tried that. I even hired a creative editor. I done like 50 60 calls just to get someone good and I ended up getting someone good. But the thing is I tried it and his his thing was so centered on soft metric CPM CPC.

[00:14:12]Now I started with like 30 CPM. After I hired the person the CPM went all the way down to about 10, but I was still getting no sales. Now for those of you that know about Facebook ads, CPM of 10 is very good. But if you're not getting sales, I mean, it doesn't matter. The website was good. Obviously, there was something wrong there. Now, after 2 weeks, this guy basically messaged me knowing that I've just literally been losing money in his program and there's pretty much no value in it that oh, I need to pay the rest. And I was like to him, I ain't paying the rest. You told me that it's when I make profits. Then he said, oh, you know what? Yeah, just listen to me. I'm like, bro, I've been listening to you, bro. Like, come on, man. You're you're meant to be the teacher here, bro. I ain't coming to you as a teacher.

[00:15:01]Whatever. Now, he's just said, "Cool."

[00:15:03]Brushed it off. Didn't need to pay it.

[00:15:06]Another week's gone by now. So, this is 3 weeks into the mentorship. And he said to me, "Look, man, there comes a time where I can't keep doing this. Like, I'll be honest, I need the money." And I'm like, "Bro, what are you on? like you have literally told me that I pay 1 and a2k and when I make profits I pay the rest. And then long story short I was going back and forth with him and then he basically kicked me out the community and stopped the coaching and with him I lost about another 4k euro or dollars I can't even remember.

[00:15:42]So about3k you know on his 1.5k and then more ad spend.

[00:15:48]And then I'm like, wow, what am I going to do now, man? Like, I'm definitely quitting fashion drop shipper. Like, that was there was no way I was joining another program about fashion drop shipping. Then I came across another mentorship more in the health, beauty, gadgets niche. And I said to myself, look, this is my last shot. If this don't work, I'll be honest. I'm fully done with e-commerce. like if I don't at least see some results like not that I was expecting to go to like 10k days, but it was more just if I can finish this 3 months, make my money back and some more profit, I'll be happy. So, I joined his mentorship and that's pretty much what happened. So, at this moment in time, I caught on to some Christmas products about 2 months into the mentorship and they scaled like crazy. I think I made about €10,000 in profit in one week. But then, long story short, the ad account got banned and I was back to zero again. Now, I tried to retest these products on new ad accounts, but as they seasonal products and I was seeing a lot of other stores caught on to them, they just got saturated too fast and it pretty much stopped working.

[00:16:55]Now, at this point, I was thinking, do I carry on with this general drop shipping or is there something else?

[00:17:02]Now, December 2024, I went to this e-commerce event in Bangkok called Affiliate World. For those of you that know, it's it's basically just a e-commerce event for like suppliers, ad agencies, payment processing, just trying to get their businesses out there. Now, obviously, it's a good way to connect with a lot of e-commerce entrepreneurs or people around e-commerce.

[00:17:27]So, so I met up with a few guys, you know, shout out to them, and they basically told me about funnel drop shipping. If they're watching this, they'll know. And, you know, I didn't go into it straight away, but I was thinking about it cuz he he's telling me like, you know, he used to do general drop shipping and this is what kind of changed his e-commerce journey and, you know, was doing like 2 mil a month in revenue. So, you know, it kind of stuck with me. Then two weeks later, I said, "You know what? F it. I'm doing it. If this guy's telling me to do it, let me just listen to him." So, at this time, I was new to funnel drop shipping. I hired a funnel builder. I started in the Australian market cuz I was already selling there um in general. So, I tried Australia. I tried about 20 funnels and I was seeing a bit of profits and then something happened with the ad account and I just thought, you know, let me just switch markets. So, I switched markets to the EU market and that's pretty much where it went skyrocketed.

[00:18:25]We done zero to 2K days in literally less than a week. Went to 100K in our first month of starting a brand new store, new ad accounts, new pixels, everything. And that's when I knew I had something good here. And I knew that this was a sustainable model. Not like general where you're testing 100 products hoping for a winner. This is actually a model where all you need to test is 10 products and you got three to five winners already. So after I hit 100k revenue in the first month, this was where things really changed. I went from being 40k down in the red to being 10k up. Now I knew that if I keep doing this, I can easily make back my losses and start actually seeing life-changing money from e-commerce. I came to a conclusion that I feel like the reason why people sell these mentorships is they're back in 2022. They think that these these things are still as easy as back then where you can just put a random Shopify landing page up and you know run some ads and Meta is going to get you sales when it really doesn't work like that. If you don't understand, you know, your customers, how they're thinking, you know, what do they do?

[00:19:37]You're never going to make it. You don't even know who you're selling to, man, woman, their age. You don't understand none of that. Now, I'm at a point where my stores are doing 300k a month in revenue, you know, with good profit margins.

[00:19:52]You know, I've got a student as well right now. He's been doing consistent 1k days. Profit margins are around 20 to 40%. Cuz he's been having high rorowass.

[00:20:02]Now what I realized is that people are still doing general drop shipping in 2026 with no branding whatsoever.

[00:20:09]The way I run now is every product has its own funnel. And this is really where the shift came when I stopped focusing on just pumping out rubbish and hoping it sticks to actually focusing on quality and testing much less. Before I used to test five products a day. Now I test five products a week and I'm seeing much more success than I was before. Now really and truly the only thing that actually changed was literally guidance and the right strategy. When I look at now compared to when I was in that 10K mentorship, the only thing that actually changed was the right strategy and the right guidance. I'm not working harder now than I was before. I'm not smarter than I was before. I'm the same person with the right strategy. So, I can't stress to you enough having the right mentors and the right people around you with the right guidance how important it is cuz it can save you money but also time and time is infinitely more valuable than money. And that's what a lot of people forget. You know, you don't want to be wasting your time doing the wrong thing or even wasting your time procrastinating on doing the right thing. You just want to get it done.

[00:21:15]Business is about speed. Whether that's ecom, you know, any business, you can do any business. You need speed. There needs to be fast. You need to do things quick. Even if that's failing quick, you need to fail quick, get back up.

[00:21:29]Righteous man falls seven times and get back up. You need to fail fast and fail a lot. But through those fails, you know, you get to the stage where you find the right things. Just like me, it had to take me all of those fails for me to get to the right place where I am now. If you've been grinding at ecom for months and it's still not working out, it's probably not you and it's probably the strategy. I wasted 40k doing the wrong things on a wrong strategy. Not only the 40k, but I wasted 8 months of my time. Now, if you want to see exactly the business model, check out my YouTube where I've got more in-depth videos on how we run our product funnels and how we run the business to be able to scale to these numbers. And if you've already tried ecom and keep hitting the same wall, then send me a DM on Insta. My current student has hit consistent 1K days in under 2 weeks of him being live.

[00:22:22]And this is someone that has zero experience of e-commerce. He's in university. He started with a couple thousand. So, if you're serious about it, then let's