Milan van essen

E-commerce Founder // Built multiple 7-figure brands // Writing about backend systems that let you scale

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

Sold my ecom brand for 7-figures last year.

Building the next one now.

The last one I built in silence for 8+ years.

Huge mistake. Doing this one in public (here on X).

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@SIMutenyo Once trust is gone, every future conversion becomes more expensive.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@kamhossieny A single smart decision can save months of headaches.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

Got a DM yesterday: "Where do I find a good ecom VA?"
You don't.

You hire 3 average ones for a 2-week paid trial. Same SOP. Same scorecard.

Track three things: completion time, error rate, how often they ask the same question twice.

The one who asks the fewest questions and never repeats one wins. Every time.

$8/hour with no judgment is more expensive than $25/hour with judgment.

Cheap VAs cost more in management hours than expensive ones cost in salary.

Pay for the brain. Not the hands.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@merchantcenterz Can't argue with that.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

A dropshipping store valuation goes for 0.7 to 0.8x.

My fashion brand sits at 2.5x.

Same category, three times the multiple. Why?

The difference isn't profit.
It's that nobody can copy mine.

My products were custom, with molds nobody else could order from. The name was trademarked. The factory contracts had AQL clauses in my name, no reseller in the middle.

You can clone a winning product in a week.

You can't clone four years of brand.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@eduardecom Lower barrier to entry, but usually lower barriers for competitors too.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@glepkoff127 Local will always be locals.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

The first time you negotiate with a Chinese factory, you'll lose.

Not because you're bad at it.
Because you don't know what you don't know.

Every factory has three prices: foreigner price, agent price, local price.

You're getting the foreigner price until you do two things: order in their language, show up in person at least once.
Saved 22% on a SKU last year by sending a Chinese-speaking sourcing partner to the factory for 90 minutes.
22% on a SKU doing $1.2M/year is $264K. From one meeting.

You don't negotiate online.

You negotiate at the table.

DMs are open if you need someone over there.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@itsbhaveshp The awaking will be hard!

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

Founder doing $400K/month told me he doesn't know his refund rate.

Asked him why.

He said "my agency handles that."

Game over and he doesn't know yet.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

The brand I sold ran most of its revenue through Meta ads when I started building it to sell.

That was the first thing I fixed. A buyer sees single-channel dependency as a countdown timer.

By exit it had email, organic, and influencer driving real volume.

The Meta account could've been suspended on a Tuesday and the business would've survived the week.

That diversification was worth more than any month of revenue.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

I went offline for 3.5 weeks and came back to an €800K month.

That number means nothing on its own.

What matters is that I didn't touch it. Two years ago I couldn't leave for a weekend without revenue crashing.

I fixed it before it owned me. Hired decision-makers for growth, ops, and product, not assistants. Wrote down the SOPs so "what do we do here" stopped routing to me. Got us off pure Meta dependency so one ad account couldn't end the month.

Time off that breaks nothing is the real flex.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@ecomsamguy Email is often the highest ROI channel and the most neglected.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@TheecomMike That bumpy road before the results is dangerous for quitters.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@umzrs For sure, it's better, but not always feasible.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@S_Z_Adil Stepping out of your comfort zone brings a lot of benefits to your business.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@DuDarcy93110 Margin is a long-term loss.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@xmdropship Trust is always the most significant achievement!

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@ecomsamguy The amount of businesses I've started in my head while checking Shopify is concerning.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@aporiabuilds You have to have a minimum balance. Otherwise you burn out or lose your important people.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@daitafix If the answer is "let's wait and see," that's a problem.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@TheecomMike You're tightening the distribution channel, not shrinking the audience.

[Milan van essen @ecommilan]

@ron_ecomm you’re now operating at the level where ideas actually become categories