I burned through $2,000 testing random products before I figured this out. Here's what actually matters when you're starting from zero:

1. Product research is 80% of the game.

Most beginners pick products because they look cool. That's backwards. You need to find products with proven demand, low competition, and solid margins. I'll take a boring product with good numbers over a "cool" one every time.

2. Your first store doesn't need to be perfect.

I spent 3 weeks tweaking fonts and colors on my first store. Meanwhile, people with ugly stores were making sales. Get it to "good enough" and launch. You can optimize later with real data.

3. Start with one ad platform and master it.

Facebook, TikTok, Google — pick ONE. I see beginners trying to run ads everywhere and getting mediocre results on all of them. Go deep on one platform until you're profitable, then expand.

The biggest lie in e-commerce is that you need a huge budget to start. You need a system. That's exactly what I teach inside Drop Academy — the step-by-step playbook I wish I had when I started.

Drop a comment if you have questions. Happy to help.