About Patrick
My name is Patrick Sztenc
From Grocery Shelf-Stocker To Making 3 Million Dollars In Revenue By Mastering Dropshipping.
My name is Patrick Sztenc and I would like to share my life story & the start of Boosted Academy.
Before we begin, there is one thing I want you to bear in mind. I am on a mission to help as many people as possible through Dropshipping. I'm putting it all out there for you. Enjoy.
THE BEGINNING
BUT BEFORE WE GET INTO THAT…
My story starts in Ontario, Canada
I was born in October in Ontario, Canada. I grew up specifically in Mississauga, with my family, however, my parents got separated when I was at a young age. My mom raised my sister and I as a single mother trying to make ends meet. Although we were not rich or anything, my mother always did her best to help us have the best life possible. Despite this, I saw my mother struggle with money and that made me want to provide a better life for my family.
Growing up I was told that I was a failure and I would never be successful. Relatives, friends, and teachers told me this. For some reason, I always had this conscience that I had meaning in life and was meant for more. Due to some circumstances, I moved around a lot as a child, but fortunately, I was able to attend schools with friends until eleventh grade. Going from house to house was something I was accustomed to because my parents were not together.
My mother made every effort to hide the challenges in her life. She made sure we had a roof over our heads, food, clothes, toys, and allowances no matter what. However, she also taught us that if we wanted something, we would need to work for it. She is the reason for my strong work ethic, and I aspire to instill the same values in my children one day. In life, nothing is given to you for free.
As a kid, it felt like I was constantly failing. Failing all my studies, I was told I would never accomplish anything. I knew that getting an education was not exactly for me. However I was told and made to feel that education was the only path to success in life, so I began to give my studies my all. Despite this, I still did not enjoy studying.
As I got older I always knew I had to do more. I knew that I had a chance to change my life around if I wanted to reach any type of success. To provide for my family and myself, I needed to take action.
This was the beginning of it all, and what shaped me into the person I am today.
STEPS THAT LED ME TO BUSINESS
Childhood
As I already mentioned, despite my parents' own struggles, they always tried their hardest to make me happy by getting me things to play with that I enjoyed when I was younger. In third grade, they bought me some battling cards.
It all began here: I was frantically attempting to outdo my friends in Yu-Gi-Oh! cards by exchanging them for more valuable ones, and I did the same with Bakugan and Pokemon. I would then profitably sell it for cash. We kids had a great time with this, however some could argue I took it too seriously.
Adolescence
In Grade 7 and 8, I learned how much I liked YouTube and was inspired by some of the people I would watch there. So I started an account dedicated to posting videos about soccer. To this day, I still have a passion for YouTube and I regularly post videos on dropshipping.
I want to hit a goal of 100K subscribers by the end of this year in 2024. So if you don’t already follow me, please do so now and check out some of the videos there that I put many hours into making and providing solid content of tips and tricks for dropshipping.
In Grade 10...
With the intention of making some money in the resale market, I bought my first limited edition "high-ticket" item on my own. My initial purchase was Nike Off White sneakers. I would have to get up as early as six in the morning for hot item drops from HypeBeast stores and brands, such as Supreme, Yeezy, Nike, Balenciaga, etc.
I was significantly profiting from sneakers, clothing, etc. At one point, I became really interested in it and even started watching YouTubers and streamers that were engaging in this kind of resale. However, this didn't always work out. There were times when I bought pricey items from drops, but the resale was not successful, as in I could not make a profit. I would therefore have to decide between losing money or keeping this item for myself.
This was the start of a good side hustle that introduced me to business. People would always try to renegotiate the price, but the matter was I knew what the items were worth and I had developed the skills necessary to interact with potential customers and make them offers they could not refuse. I knew I was doing something right. To this day, I still sometimes tap into reselling as it is still a really fun way to make money.
In grade 11...
My family and I moved to a new house completely isolated from my old school and friends. The only way to stay connected was online. I started theme pages on Twitter and Instagram for my favorite sports teams, such as Toronto Raptors and FC Barcelona. I was in a Tweet Deck with a bunch of sports accounts and we would ReTweet each other's content. This was the beginning of my journey into social media.
I had created many social media accounts, learning how to manage them and understand how to grow a big following quickly. I even grew one of these accounts to a million followers on Twitter and then I sold a couple of these accounts as well. It got to the point where I was promoting businesses on Twitter and Instagram and was paid to be an administrator of these accounts to help grow the pages. Little did I know how useful this was all going to be in my future career.
Graphic Design came next. In Grade 12...
I was experimenting with it and realized maybe this could be something life-changing for me. I completed a co-op program for it, where I learned how to successfully create logos and utilize Photoshop programs. Soon enough, I had built a decent portfolio and was gaining clients. Then, I wanted to take graphic design more seriously and do it for bigger companies.
Meanwhile, I was still managing my theme pages on social media and still actively doing the promotions. Then it clicked. I knew I wanted to start a business. But, since I was living at home, I knew I could not hold or store any inventory anywhere. This slowly led me to dropshipping in a weird way, I’ll explain in the next paragraph.
After graduating high school
I decided to take a year off from school, which is also known as a “gap year”. This was a confusing yet necessary period of time. I acknowledged that all my friends were fully committed to university and that was going to be their main focus.
I had to find a job because, at this point, my parents had completely cut me off financially. This is when I started working at a grocery store as a Shelf-Stocker. There were times when I had to trek through snow for 1 hour to get to work because the buses were not running, which was a pretty humbling experience. I had applied and got into graphic design programs at universities and colleges.
I was getting some jobs creating logos for businesses, but I soon realized that this was not going to be my future. I just could not see myself doing this all the time and that I wanted to do more. I felt like I started to really appreciate business, I was reading a lot of business books, and motivational reads. I realized what I really wanted was to go to University for Economics.
I knew business would at least teach me something, and the appeal to it I think stemmed from all the results of my theme pages, social media and selling graphic designs. During this time, I was balancing all these side hustles as well. One of the main motivations working at the grocery store was to invest in saving up for a potential business start up and figuring out how I can get my foot into the business world.
This is when someone told me that you can actually sell products without having to deal with the hassle of inventory, known as dropshipping. Ever since, I’ve been super interested in it and determined how to master it.
My first main focus was how to build stores and how to become the best at it. I was spending thousands of dollars testing different products and spending thousands of minutes watching YouTube trying to figure out how to successfully dropship. Soon enough I found my first product.I ultimately purchased my first product, a personalized phone case for soccer enthusiasts, which I would soon be selling.
You could choose the player from various soccer teams that you would like featured on it. I attempted to use my theme pages to host a few advertisements for it. There were some sales made by it. It was tough for this product to do well because the iPhone 6 was the only phone case model that was available, thus it did not have a great range for buyers.
I invested about $3,000 overall on this business. I continued to experiment and get familiar, but I came to the realization I might need external help. This is when I invested in getting a mentor.
EARLY ADULTHOOD
I really underestimated how hard economics was, haha. In the first year, I did not take it too seriously as I got excited about University life. The girls, the parties, the freedom of being a 19-year-old, just like most students. As I was starting to struggle with school, I was also keeping up a job, multiple side hustles, a relationship and my e-commerce business, I knew something was going to give. I was still testing out different products, such as relationship products, calendar keychains, and sneaker keychains. I also worked in construction that summer. With all the money I had generated, I bought my first car - a Volkswagen Jetta. This was my first adult purchase and I was starting to feel more confident in myself.
In my second year, I finally landed what most would call a great 9-5 job at a really good bank. I finally found a really good product, reflective clothing. With the money I was making from my job, I was pouring every cent into my Shopify dropshipping business. This product did not come easy, but it helped me make my first 5 figure numbers. I was able to buy my first Mustang which I had wanted since I was a child. I realized that all my work in dropshipping was doing good for me and that anyone that was doubting me started to become quiet or interested in learning from me.
In third year, dropshipping was doing so well. I had friends and people who knew I was doing this business model and wanted to learn it too, so I slowly started mentoring people for a very good price. But I was 100% focused on my dropshipping stores. So in the first semester, I quit my job at the bank. This is when my businesses took off with dropshipping and did super good. I had three main winning products that were all collectively bringing in a good amount of money, two of them were crease guards for sneakers and reflective clothing.
The other I am still selling today with a revenue of approximately $3 million. This is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to continue with university. I knew studying and attending classes was taking a lot of time away from it. The second semester, the coronavirus pandemic struck and I dropped out of university. I was certain that I did not want to work for anyone else or a 9-5 job ever again. I was confident in my ability to be my own boss and run my own businesses. This is when I became a full-fledged entrepreneur. My main store blew up and I am forever grateful that I decided to pursue dropshipping at that time.
PRESENTLY
Since dropping out in 2021, my winning product store has kept me very busy. I have taught hundreds of people dropshipping in my Boosted Academy mentorship program. I have debunked the dropshipping stereotype that “dropshipping is dead”. I have created a discord community and a free course for those who cannot afford my mentorship. I have tried my best to share my entrepreneurial journey on dropshipping through all social media platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. I’ve managed to purchase my first dream supercar, a Nissan GTR, and moved into my dream penthouse in downtown Toronto.
I have traveled to 12 different countries and have been able to remotely work there. In addition to helping my sister with her studies and profession, I have been able help my mom with home renovations. I’ve given work to many people I know who were in need of a side hustle. I want everyone to know about this insane business model that has helped me become a millionaire in my early twenties.
In 2024 now, I want to help students get into dropshipping and help them be successful because I know it is a profitable business model that I’ve been using for the past six years. And I want to teach other people how to do it too. I am excited about the future and I know I am headed in the right direction for even more success.
I hope you enjoyed this read and if you stuck around until now, I have faith in you.
