Will Rivera Talks About His Secrets to a Successful E-Commerce Track for Young Entrepreneurs

Earlier this week, I got the privilege to talk to the biggest e-commerce expert in the Atlanta Georgia area, Will Rivera. Not only has he been able to hit six figures in a month on e-commerce platforms like Shopify & Amazon, but he’s also leading a group upward of 700 other e-commerce business owners to help grow and expand their own business using only the power of the internet. The most surprising and most impressive takeaway from all of this is that he’s only 21 years old!

I’d like to know a lot more about your program with over 600+ business owners. I believe it’s called Ecom Degree University, right? Can you elaborate more on what exactly it is and who it might be for?

Yeah, for sure. So I made Ecom Degree University around a year and half ago. And it’s completely about ec-ommerce, which is a fancy word for selling products online. Right now I mainly focus on selling on Amazon and dropshipping with Shopify, which is another e-commerce platform. I wanted to make my program super simple to follow and easy to understand for anyone, no matter where they are in the world. It doesn’t matter what age you are or how much you think you might know about selling anything online. As long as you have a computer or laptop and a wifi signal, you can easily learn this.

Fascinating. You said that it doesn’t matter what age you are right? So does this mean a young kid in highschool or an elderly person well into retirement can get started in your program and do well in it?

Yup! I’ve had a handful of kids who are still in high school but are thinking well into the future for a better life, ask about my program and actually join. I can think of a few on the top of my head that have done moderately well considering their age and for just being beginners in the whole process. They aren’t rich by any means, but I’d say that they’ve seen enough success to save at least a couple thousand in their bank account. I have screenshots on my phone of them right now if you want to see!

That’s alright, Will, I believe you. Have you had an older person try out your program yet? How well have they done?

I haven’t had too many elderly people try my program because my audience has mostly been people around their late teens and mid twenties. I’ve maybe only had about 10 or less but that doesn’t stop them from getting similar success than the younger ones. I have noticed that the learning curve is a bit steeper for them getting to know all the tools and platforms we use. Because I have relatives who go through similar experiences with technology in general I try to explain and demonstrate everything in my program to be as used and understood as easily as possible.

What would you say is the best thing about your program that draws people to buy from you versus anyone else selling the same thing?

That’s a great question! I think that most people come because everyone building their own businesses can relate to one another more or less. Like I said before, most of my students are either going into college or they are graduating soon so they share a lot of similarities. Because of this, it creates a special type of community that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s a lot of future-minded young people who share the same drive of being a successful entrepreneur, which can be a difficult thing to find on a college campus. A lot of college kids wouldn’t be willing to take the risk of starting a new business for themselves so I think it’s nice that all these people have found a place where they fit in and can support one another on a daily basis.

A shorter way of saying it, the Ecom Degree Community carries a certain type of energy that cant be found anywhere else just because everyone is on the same level and wants the same thing with huge passion and drive to reach their goals. Everyone is always talking to one another and supporting each other when they celebrate and when they need help, too!

When the idea of making money online comes to mind  for most people,  they automatically think, “No way, it has to be a scam!” Do you have anything to say on that?

Yeah, so it’s natural for anyone to think it’s a scam because it’s so unfamiliar to what we are used to: making money from a regular job. So, I can’t blame anyone for thinking that way. With that said, I encourage anyone skeptical to try to be open minded at the very least just to see what is really possible out there. When I first got started, I was extremely nervous. I’d lose all my money and I wouldn’t make a penny, but fast-forward to now, 3 years later, here I am.

If anyone is interested in looking deeper into it, I have a YouTube channel that they can check out  and watch more videos about e-commerce. I think I should say that they don’t have to buy a program to be successful, although I think it’s much easier.

Do you have any advice for anyone stuck in a 9-to-5 job that might want to try Ecom Degree University?

1. Most people I know start selling online in hopes to replace their job so they can work for themselves. It’s what I did and I don’t regret it a single bit. But, I want to warn people to keep their job and avoid quitting it until you have a year’s supply of savings saved up to support living costs and to also keep it because it’s another source of income for the time being. As fun and tempting of an idea to throw away your job to pursue entrepreneurship full time, I’d heavily encourage anyone to keep it until they are financially set for awhile, otherwise they’ll only be making it harder for themselves to reach their bigger long term life goals.
2. Besides that , my other tip would be to start selling anything you don’t need on Ebay, Mercari, Offer up, Amazon, etc. It’ll help build funding for business expenses , but it’ll also declutter your house and make everything more organized. One of the best things I’ve noticed in my entire journey is a neat workspace is a focused workplace. If you have trash and clutter everywhere, it’s 10x harder to focus and get things done on your own, which is a big deal in the entrepreneurship world.
3. After you sell everything that you think you don’t need or wont use in the future, then the best and last thing I can tell people is to look up my YouTube videos and get my free 0-100k in 6 days blueprint. My videos give a lot of practical advice on how to sell flip items anyone can find for the cheap or super low and sell for a good profit into their pocket. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace always have something that someone can flip and make a huge Return on Investment (ROI) if they stay consistent for several months. On another note, my free 0-100k blueprint will help anyone understand the business model known as dropshipping.
4. My last tip might be the most important one of all, although it doesn’t have anything to do with e-commerce. It’d be to not limit yourself at what you can do. When I think about it, there’s absolutely no way I could have ever made 100k/yr let alone 100k/mo if I only thought i was capable of 10k/mo. There’s no way I could have been able to grow a community of 700+ people if I thought 100 people was my limit.

I know a lot of people who work the same full time 9-5 day job and just aren’t satisfied. They know they are capable of more, but don’t have the belief to reach beyond their job because they’re scared of taking a leap that may or may not pay off. They don’t believe they can be successful on their own so they just settle with where they’re at in life rather than striving for bigger potential.

The bottom line of success in anything in life comes down to a person’s mindset and how they see and think of themselves.

That’s wonderful, Will. Thanks for sharing those amazing tips. What would you say to someone who is in that position where they aren’t satisfied with where they’re at in life and want something more but don’t know how to start?

Yeah, I can think of a few different things for them to try out. One will be to allow yourself to try different activities or hobbies. If you haven’t tried something, how would you know you don’t love it? You could be one hobby away from finding your passion. How would you feel if it was that close and you thought about it but never took a chance to try it? What’s the worst that can happen? You spend a day off to try fishing, for example, only to find out it’s not your thing. But if you discover it IS your thing, then you just found what most people never find : your passion. From then on, you’ll have a new type of energy going into your day because you’ll have one more thing to look forward to when you get off of work.

Another is to go out into different types of environments outside your normal routine. Maybe instead of always eating lunch at your desk, you eat out at a different place with a different group of co workers every day. I know this all sounds random and meaningless at first but  all of this is meant to see what’s possible and what out there in the world. It helps you be more inspired to start change in your life and exercise the idea of taking a leap or risk in life.

How can someone apply this to their life if they want to make more money and aren’t satisfied with their current job?

The way I see it, there’s two different options someone can take when it comes to their job. If they want to take a leap or a chance in their 9-5 job, they can start a side hustle side business in their off time, which can turn into something bigger if they put in enough time into it. The other option is to try a different career but that still won’t give them the freedom of time a business can offer.

If anyone wants to get started in e-commerce, I’d recommend YouTube to just get familiar with everything. I have a YouTube channel where you can learn a ton for free. Most people make you pay for that information but I give it away for free because I want to add the most value to the people.

If you want to take things to the next level, I’d suggest my program Ecom Degree University. I do have some bias because its my program but I really do think it’s one of the best courses out there because I give as much value as I can pack into it and the members have created a very welcoming and supportive community where everyone always gets pumped up from each others’ energy and gives them a big energy boost every day. One of the most important things anyone can do is surround themselves with people who build them up and not tear them down so I’m really proud to say that my small e-commerce community is all about that.

What would you do if you did it all over again?

I’d probably keep my job until my business made more than my work pay. Besides that, I’d probably network with as many people as possible and produce more content on my social media accounts to build my personal brand faster. Those things will give me more power. More power leads to more opportunity and more leverage. That stuff will let me scale and build faster. It’s definitely not easy but doable.

Find Will Rivera on Instagram, Youtube, and ecomdegreeuniversity.com.