[0:00]Finding that one winning product is what takes you from rock bottom to finally hitting that six-figure store. But as you probably already know, finding your first real winning product is far from easy. You know, often times you're wasting weeks researching and burning hundreds, if not thousands of dollars while testing. That used to be me six years ago when I was first getting into drop shipping. And honestly, nothing really changed for me until I finally learned these five principles of winning product research. And after learning these, I was able to scale multiple stores to six and seven figures like clockwork. And that led me to sharing them with others and that led to over eight figures in client results. So today, I want to pass on these five principles to you, so you can find your first six-figure winner in 2026. Principle number one, the six criteria of a winning product. So before you go out there researching, you need to know what a winning product actually looks like. And in my experience, every single winning product that I or my clients have scaled up checks these six criteria first. The first criteria and probably the most important is that the product has to solve a real problem that is connected to what I call a deep pain. And look, you might be like, yeah, no shit, Nathan, I've heard of this before, I get you, you know, the product has to solve a problem. But the reason you haven't found a six-figure winner yet is because no one's explaining to you what the hell this actually means. So look, I know there's a lot of people out there selling random gadgets and cute little toys as drop shipping products. And while that can work, it's not necessarily a good strategy for somebody who's just starting out. Because when you sell a random item that doesn't solve a true deep pain, like a fidget toy or some cute lamp, you're essentially trying to convince someone that they need something that they have literally never thought about before. And it's hard to do because there's no existing desire to buy that thing. There's no deep pain. Now look, there are two types of deep pain, physical and emotional. Physical pain is stuff like back pain, neck pain, joint pain. You know, really any type of pain that someone can feel in their body. Now emotional pain or psychological pain is stuff that affects a person's confidence and their self-image. You know, like bad skin, hair loss, feeling overweight, feeling low status. You see, physical pain works because people are actively searching for solutions. Skincare and hair care, these are multi-billion dollar industries. Why? Because people with acne or hair loss are deeply insecure about it. It affects their confidence. You know, I recently became a new pet owner and I realized that the pet niche works the same way. It's super emotional. You know, people love their pets like family. They'll spend crazy amounts of money just to keep them healthy and comfortable because seeing their pet in pain causes deep emotional pain. So, you need to become an expert at identifying and targeting those deep pain points in the market. And this goes far beyond just feeling or looking good. I recommend studying Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This one pyramid will give you a much deeper understanding of what desires people tend to have at all different levels of comfort and security. So next time when you're looking at a product, first ask yourself, is this the kind of product that solves a deep pain? And if the answer is yes, you have a very good foundation for your first six-figure winning product. But even if you get this first criteria right, if you get this second one wrong, you'll fail before you even start. And the second criteria is picking a product in what I call profit margin green zone. So look, I can tell you first hand from experience that people mess this one up all the time. They find a product for $15, they sell it for $25, they start making some sales, you know, they get super excited, and then they check their bank account and realize that they're actually losing money on every single order. They thought that $10 gross profit was good, but after marketing, fees and subscriptions, that $10 quickly becomes negative five. So in order to avoid this, be sure to check if you can sell your product for at least three times the price of what the supplier is selling it for. So if you find a product for, let's say $15, that means you need to sell it for at least $45. Unless you're selling high ticket or, you know, you're focusing on building a long-term brand and you already have thousands of dollars to deploy, but that's a conversation for another day. You need to be selling at a 3x markup because fulfilling and acquiring clients costs a crap ton of money. You've also got payment processing fees, subscription fees, customer service, returns, refunds, chargebacks. And when all that adds up, you're not going to be left with very much if you don't follow this rule. So it's very simple, but really important that you have this sorted out from day one. If you can't sell a product for three times the price, skip it. It'll be really hard to reach that healthy 25 to 30% profit margin that we're all looking for. Now the third criteria is often so overlooked, it's not even funny. I've seen people burn their businesses to the ground by not following this step. And it's going to sound so simple, but the product needs to be lightweight. I don't want to ship refrigerators or car parts, furniture, really anything heavy because shipping costs on heavy products will eat into my margins like crazy. So ideally, the product has to fit in a shoe box or smaller. You know, small lightweight products keep the shipping costs low and your profit margins high. This is really a non-negotiable if you're just starting out. The fourth criteria might be somewhat controversial and some people might not agree with me here, and it's that the product needs to be evergreen. So here's what that means. If you sell beach toys, you'll be scratching your head when winter comes around and you're sitting there with zero sales. No income, no cash flow, nothing, just waiting around for summer to come back. And here's the thing, there's already so many variables that you have to deal with when you're, let's say, running ads or even creating organic content. The algorithm changes, competitors, creative fatigue. You don't need another variable to stack on top of all of that by picking a seasonal product. You want to have a product that sells well all year round. And you can check this by going to a website called Google Trends and searching for key terms relating to your product. Then what you want to do is zoom out at least five to 10 years, so you can see the bigger picture and make sure that there's a steady increase in interest over time. For example, if you search the terms neck pain, you'll see a beautiful steady graph, generally trending up. And that means that people are always interested in these types of products, no matter the weather. But what you don't want to see is a graph that has one huge jump and then a massive dip down, like this graph of the term fidget spinner. So just please pick products with consistent demand year-round. Now, the fifth criteria is something that will help you build a real brand in the future, and not just build pump and dump stores all the time. And that is that the product you pick needs to have upsell potential. You want products that you can cross-sell and upsell to the same customer. If you're selling blue light blocking glasses, the perfect upsell for you will be a glasses case or maybe even a cleaning kit. Let's say you're selling skin care, well, in this case, the perfect upsell would be more skin care products that you can just build into a routine. I always like to say that you always want to begin with the end in mind. You don't want to try to find a product that sells and then try to figure out upsells later down the line. You want to know from day one, what upsells and cross-sells can I do so that I can envision the full business being successful before I even start. Upsells will increase your customer lifetime value, which means that you'll make more revenue, more profit, and be able to scale harder and faster. So when you're first picking a product, ask yourself, what else can I sell to the same customer later down the line? Now for the last criteria, and this is the one that ties everything together, the product needs to be validated but not oversaturated. Now it sounds simple enough, but you must understand this to a deep level if you're ever to find a winning product. So let me explain. Validated means the product checks these three keys. Your competitors are already selling this product at a volume of at least $100,000 a month or more. And I'll show you how to check this just a little later on. They also have ads that have been running for 30 plus days, and that they are launching and testing new ads and coming up with new angles every single week. So the logic behind these three keys is that if someone is both continuing to spend money on existing ads and putting in the time to come up with new angles, that means they're making money. Product is winning. However, identifying saturation levels is also extremely important if you want to make money. So stay with me here. Now, there's no metric, no specific number that I can tell you that will determine if a product is oversaturated or not. It really is a skill you develop, and your intuition will improve over time. But it mostly comes down to the answer you have to this question right here. Can I do something better than the other stores? Can I create better ads or content? Can I hit a different audience with this product? If you have all the other five criteria in check, but you cannot find any competitive edge over the other stores, then just move on. You'll get wiped out. So what you're looking for instead is the sweet spot. You want to see some virality, like a few hundred thousand views on some TikTok videos in the last month, but the accounts shouldn't have blown up like crazy just yet. That means the product is at the beginning of its winning cycle. So if you spot terrible quality content that is consistently doing well, then that tells you it's not about the video. The product is likely not very saturated, and it's carrying the weight of the entire marketing performance. And that is when you know you struck gold. Now to recap, validated means proven demand exists, not oversaturated, means you're not competing with 500 other stores, and you can actually find a competitive edge and improve upon the marketing of the existing stores that are selling products. This way, you're not gambling, you're following proven winners early enough that there's still opportunity. So that's principle number one of finding a winning product, understanding what a winning product actually looks like. And I invite you to rewatch this section as much as you need until you get every single criteria ingrained in your mind. So quick checklist for you to write down right now. Product solves a deep problem, has strong margins, it's lightweight, evergreen, has upsell potential, validated but not overly saturated. Now, I know if you're a complete beginner, it's a lot to take in all at once, and it will take some time to learn how to recognize these patterns. It took me six whole months to find my first winner. So if you're someone who wants to find a winner quick and launch a six-figure AI e-com store fast, but at the same time you don't want to spend ages learning everything by yourself, memorizing all these patterns, and burning thousands of dollars in the process, then you're in luck. Real quick, this is me from the future in editing, and the reason why I'm throwing this in there is because there's been so many updates to what we're working on, it's honestly insane. Now you're probably thinking I'm going to pitch you on a mentorship and try to take thousands of dollars from you. Well, the first part's true, but the second part isn't, because I'm here to pitch you on a literal free mentorship. And instead of just telling you about it, let me just show you. So, we've been working hard on this custom platform. Basically, you're going to get courses, weekly coaching calls, exclusive deals, 24/7 support, and literally every resource imaginable for you to succeed. I'm honestly so blessed because my mission for the longest time has been to create the best free e-commerce education on the planet, and now I can confidently say that we are doing so. We've secured the best deals with the largest e-com companies in the world who are paying us to put on this free mentorship, which means that you don't have to pay a dime for this. The first link will be in the description, we only make money when you do and when you become a long-term user of their platform and succeed with e-com. This is the craziest thing out there right now, and I'm so happy that we get to give you what other people are charging thousands and thousands of dollars for, and I think ours is better anyway. So I'll see you inside and back to the video. Okay, let's move on to principle number two, winning product research methods. Because now that you know what a winning product looks like, you need a simple method of actually finding these products. If you ever tried doing this, you know it's not easy at all. You'd waste hours researching and only find products that you feel maybe have a small chance of working. It doesn't have to be this hard though, because right now, I'm going to share with you my three absolute favorite winning product research methods that are hella simple and proven to find winners time and time again. Kicking it off with the first one, we got the AI deep research method. And this method works so well because of this magical prompt right here. This is something that my team and I developed to make our workflow finding winning products extremely simple. So let me do this live so you can follow along step by step. So first, just head down to the description and open up this Google Doc. You'll see the full prompt inside, and yeah, it's free to use as much as you'd like. Then just go ahead and copy and paste everything into ChatGPT or Claude and put it on deep research mode. If you don't have a premium plan on either ChatGPT or Claude, you can do it without deep research as well. It's just that the responses won't be as detailed. For the second step, it will ask you to pick a niche. So I'm going to go with the pet niche since I recently became an owner of an adorable dog that absolutely reeks havoc on my brand new crib. Now, once you let it run for a while, this prompt will then get you five to 10 winning products with detailed explanations as to why they are winners and show you exactly how they match the six criteria. And as a bonus, it also includes an ad angle that you can instantly use if you choose to pick that product. So looking at these product recommendations, I think I'll go with this LED nail clipper. Let's double check the criteria for this product. So dog and cat owners don't want to hurt their pets, so it solves a pain point. I could source this product on AutoDS for about five to 10 dollars. Competitors are selling it for $40. It's also super lightweight, it's evergreen because pet nails need to be trimmed all the time, and plus, there's an increasing number of pet owners every year. There's also upsell potential for different kinds of grooming kits, paw balms, and all sorts of pet products, really. But most importantly, it's showing signs of early validation and not a lot of saturation. But we'll need to check this manually to be sure, and I'll show you how to do that in just a sec. The third step of this method is that after you pick a product you want to dive deeper into, just copy its name into the winning product tracking sheet that I'll link in the description as well. This is how you organize all your product candidates in one place, so you don't lose track of what you found. And that's how you use the AI prompt method. I wish that I had something like this when I was starting out six years ago. I would have saved so much time. But here's the thing, while AI is incredible at finding validated products, there's something that it can't do. It can't show you what's about to blow up right now in real time. It can't tell you what's trending on your social feeds today, and it can't teach you how to spot the winners the second they start gaining traction. So that's where research method number two comes in, and it's called the TikTok burner method. And this is how you train your eye to catch products at the beginning of their viral cycle, when there's maximum opportunity. When they're just starting to become validated, but definitely before they're saturated, when there's quite literally maximum opportunity. And this is the method that I used to find products that went from zero to six figures. So let me show you how it works. First, just grab a new email address and create a fresh account on TikTok and Instagram. Once you're inside, go ahead and search up popular hashtags like TikTok made me buy it and Amazon finds, and just start liking the videos. You know, on TikTok you can also filter for videos that have the most likes in the last three months to show you the videos that are doing well right now. The next thing that you want to do is for a couple of the products that you found, just click on the links as if you're a customer looking to buy it. Add the product to the cart and even proceed to the checkout. Fill out your info if you want, but stop right before clicking purchase. This way, the TikTok and Meta pixels will start to register you as a high intent buyer and will keep serving you more winning product videos. With the six criteria in mind, continue consciously scrolling and saving the videos with products that you think have potential. Once you found something good, save the video and continue until you have at least 20 candidates. Then just transfer them back into that winning product tracker sheet. This method will also give you a really good feel for what's trending on the algorithm right now and what people are actually buying. That's method number two. Moving on to method number three, if you have just $1 to spare and would like to save yourself from scrolling endlessly on TikTok and Instagram, then this method is for you. And it's called the TikTok Shop Analytics method. So let me show you how it works. To use it, you'll need to get access to AutoDS, but with my special link in the description, it's literally only $1 for the first month. Plus, it's essential for fulfilling your orders, which I'll talk about in just a second, but after you register, just head down to TikTok analytics right here, and then you'll see this TikTok analytics tab. Now what AutoDS does is it uses AI to collect all of this TikTok Shop data, and it allows you to see what is selling right now. So just go ahead and start scrolling through this list and start collecting candidates based on the first six criteria that I covered. Now what's even better about this method of research is that once you find a product you're interested in, you can check all of the data on it, and also see the videos that are doing the best. So you're essentially killing two birds with one stone. You're finding the winning products, the winning angles, the winning videos and ads, but on top of that, you're also getting to see what's selling in real time. And what's even better is that most of these TikTok Shop products are only selling this well on TikTok Shop. Which means that you can take this same product, build a proper Shopify store around it, and bring it to Facebook ads, where there's much less competition. Blue ocean. So scroll this list, find candidates, look at the sales data, and add the winners to your tracking sheet. That's the TikTok Shop Analytics method. And just like that, we've covered two principles. So having these three methods in your arsenal gives you a massive chance of finding your first six-figure winner. After you use one of these three methods, or maybe all three combined, you should have developed a solid list of product candidates in your tracker sheet that we've provided below. But here's the thing, before you just jump in and start testing these products, you need to be 100% sure that the product checks criteria six, which brings me to principle number three, showing you exactly how to make sure your products are validated but not oversaturated. Which again, it means you can scale the heck out of them. But if you skip this step, you could waste weeks on a product that never even had a chance. So let's jump in. First, take the product you picked. For me, it's the LED pet nail clipper. Now in the AI output, you'll also see a list of keywords, hashtags, and search terms for that product. Copy those. And if you didn't use the AI method, just paste in the name of your product into ChatGPT with this prompt. Generate competitor keyword research for this product. You also want to make sure you're including the exact product terms, variations, hashtags, and related search phrases people use to find this product online. So what you'll do is you'll copy these search terms and hashtags and check them out on all social platforms. Search them up on Google, TikTok, Instagram, the Meta Ads Library, even YouTube to get a full picture of what you're dealing with for this specific product. Now you'll come across brands selling this product, that's for sure. But what's important is that you find an opportunity to differentiate yourself and gain a competitive edge. Never forget that. If you can't find one, again, it's probably time to move on. So let's check this out for the LED pet nail clipper. So I searched LED pet nail clipper and dog nail trimmer with light. I found only two brands actively running ads for this product. But here's the key, they've been running ads for a while, so that means they're profitable. The product is working. Step two, I went on TikTok and I searched for the same keywords. This product has gone pretty viral. There were a few videos with hundreds of thousands of views. Then I checked the comments and people were loving it. And that's such a good sign. Now for step three, I was searching for ways I could compete with these brands. Now, here's where it gets good, because I found several competitive advantages that I could take. Edge number one, better product page. You know, these two stores that I found, they had decent product pages, but I know I could do better. And the second edge, better ads. The ads I saw for this product were very generic. You know, I could create higher quality content and more creative angles. Now the third edge I could take is niching it down a bit. See, I noticed people were asking this question, does it work on black dog nails? So I could create an angle specifically for dogs with black nails, where it's much harder to see the vein. So from following this method, I now realize this product is validated, you know, people are buying it, ads are running, demand exists. And it's not oversaturated, only two major competitors are selling it, and there's clear ways that I can differentiate myself. That is exactly what you should be looking for. Make sure you take every product in your tracker sheet and start running it through this validation process. Search the keywords, check the platforms, find your competitive edge. If you can't find an edge, just move on to the next product. Once you find a validated product with a clear way to differentiate yourself, you've struck gold. And now you have just one more piece to add to your puzzle to be able to finally launch your first six-figure winning store. And this brings me to principle number four, which is honestly so overlooked, it's not even funny. You know, most people go through the treacherous process of finding a winning product, and when they finally do have something that matches all the criteria, they get so excited to test it, and then they realize that they never even found a supplier for the product. They don't have a way of sourcing it and shipping it out on time, or worse, they find a supplier with terrible shipping times, horrible quality, or prices that completely destroy their margins. So, ultimately, what's the point of finding a winning product if you can't actually sell it? So that's why principle four is all about finding the right supplier. You're looking for someone reliable who can get you the product at the right price, ship it fast, and handle fulfillment without you having to babysit every single order. The one platform that I always come back to is AutoDS. In my experience of starting dozens of e-commerce brands over the past six years, this is hands-down the best supplier and fulfillment platform you can use as a beginner. And here's why it's so good. First, they have access to quite literally millions of products across over 25 different wholesalers. You know, AliExpress, Teemu, even Walmart, you name it, they can source it. So if you're looking for that LED pet nail clipper I just validated, I can go ahead and search it on AutoDS, and 9.9 times out of 10, I'll find it. Second, it's extremely easy to connect products to your Shopify store. Literally one click. Third, they handle all the fulfillment and order processing for you automatically. No more manually placing orders, no more copying and pasting customer info. It's all done for you. It's basically like having multiple VAs all working inside your business.
[22:23]And it's only a dollar to start.
[22:44]And once you scale up, you can even request AutoDS to negotiate with their supplier connections so that you'll get an even lower price and faster shipping. So look, having a good supplier really can make or break your store. And when you're just starting out, you don't have time to manually vet 50 different suppliers, negotiate prices, and hope they don't screw up your orders. AutoDS will remove all of that friction. You get access to millions of products, automatic fulfillment, and a platform that not only works, but revolutionize the entire drop shipping game. Now we got to talk about principle number five, the winner's mindset. Look, my YouTube analytics usually show me that only a very small percentage of you actually make it this far into my videos. So if you're still here, principle five is literally what's going to set you apart from everyone else who already clicked off and is picking their first product already. And this principle is what I call the winning product mindset. Because look, I can give you the perfect criteria for finding winning products. I can hand you the exact methods that I use to find them. I can show you how to validate and how to source them, but if you don't have the right mindset about the whole thing, you're going to quit before you ever find your first winner. And I've literally seen this happen to so many people. They test two or three products, they don't see results immediately, and they're out. So let me give you the three mindset keys that changed everything for me. I discovered the first key when I was first starting dropshipping six years ago. At 19 in my dorm room in college, six months of testing products that completely flopped. Six months of wasting money testing shitty ads. Six months of doubting if this whole thing was even real. But when I finally found that one winner, it went from zero to $2,000 days in a matter of weeks. And it completely changed my life. So the first key is something that people completely forget to mention, and it's that finding a winning product isn't a 24-hour sprint. It's a long process, you're really developing and honing a skill here. And every product you test, even the ones that failed, is teaching you something. All of that work is profitable even if you don't see the money coming in yet. The second key is something that most beginners miss, and it's the reason they never hit the six-figure mark with their store. They find a product, they spend three weeks researching it, they read every Reddit thread about it, they convince themselves that they need the perfect product before they test anything. What's happening here is that they just get stuck in the state of analysis paralysis. They get overwhelmed, and then they never actually test the product. So look, you're not going to know if a product is a winner until you put it in front of real customers. You can do all the research in the world. At the end of the day, none of this stuff can replace real market feedback. So once you've validated a product using principle three and you can source it with good margins, just test it. Make some good content, run some ads, see what happens. You'll learn more in seven days of testing than seven weeks of researching. Now the third key is something really simple and obvious, yet most beginners overlook it and it costs them everything. Here's the mistake I see all the time. Someone goes out there and finds five products they like, they try to test all five at once. They're running ads for product A, you're creating content for product B, building a store over here for product C. And you know what happens, they've spread themselves so thin that none of the products ever got a real shot. They quit on product A after three days because they're already distracted by product D. I did the same exact thing when I started. I'd find a product, I'd test it for a few days, I'd get impatient about it and just jump to the next one. I convinced myself that I was testing efficiently and moving with speed, but really, I was just scared to commit. I was scared to go all in on one product and potentially fail. So here's what changed for me. I finally picked one product and said, I'm giving this two to three weeks minimum. So I created 20 pieces of content for that one product, I tested five different marketing ad angles for that one product, I optimized the product page for that one product, and that is when I found my very first winner. Not because it was a better product than some of the other ones that I tested, but because I actually gave it enough time and effort to work. And that's the last key of the three. Focus on one product at a time. Listen, you know what a winning product looks like. You now know how to find them, you now know how to validate them, and you know how to source them. On top of all of that, you know the mindset that it takes to actually succeed. The only question remaining is, are you actually going to do it? Because I promise you, someone watching this video right now is going to use these exact principles to find their first six-figure winner in 2026 and will likely become a millionaire by 2027. The only question is if that person is going to be you. And if you want to see what you're in for in this whole drop shipping game, then come and watch me select a product live and actually try to scale it to $1,000 a day in less than seven days. So check this video out next. Spoiler alert, didn't really go as I planned. Well, that's it for me. Thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate all the support. Leave a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you next week.
