Episode #40 - Alexander Logan

#15MinuteFounder

Alexander Logan is a Netherlands-based e-commerce entrepreneur who has spent five years building ethical dropshipping and brand businesses.

He runs multiple stores across different payment processors and markets, and he conducts a weekly network check on every account just to stay on top of where the money actually is. His public persona is built around one idea: that the flashy lifestyle you see on e-commerce Twitter rarely matches what’s happening behind the scenes.

He doesn’t sell courses. He has been sued twice in the same year. He has had a Shopify hold lock up his working capital while he was trying to pay his team. He’s kept going anyway.

In this episode, Alexander breaks down what “drop-keeping” actually is and why it ruins people who try it, the real reason there are so many Dutch entrepreneurs at every e-com event in the world, and why creative output plus Facebook ads is the only foundation he trusts.

He talks about his lowest point this year, the philosophy behind The Surrender Experiment, and why he thinks self-belief matters more than any tactic.

Alexander spent five years learning what it actually takes to run an ethical e-commerce brand at scale. doola gives international founders a real US business entity to build on, so your momentum goes toward growing the brand, not patching the foundation.

Highlights From the Chat

Q: What is “no-shipping” or “drop-keeping”?

It’s basically an aura that someone gives off. There’s something sketchy about it. I’ve been in this space for five years now, so I can kind of tell, even though they don’t really tell me what they’re doing. It’s just an energy I can feel.

Drop-keeping is basically drop-shipping without the shipping. You sell a product and just don’t send it. It’s like scamming.

What I heard is they rapidly scale it in about a week, usually on someone else’s Stripe account or with a Hong Kong nominee account. Because you have so much margin, you’re not sending anything, you can spend a lot on ads. It’s usually an expensive product sold at a fraction of the real price.

You rapidly scale, take the money out, and move to the next store.

I don’t keep people like that in my network by any means.

Q: You posted a “dropshipper timeline” that went viral. How much truth is in it?

Everything you see online is usually not the reality. That’s kind of what I meant with it.

Some people have a coaching business and don’t actually do e-com. If the service is good, that’s fine. But there’s a lot of gray area. I don’t sell a course or anything like that, and I feel like you kind of need to deserve your title to actually talk about what you’re doing.

If you attach your name to something, it’s very important to do it right. Some people fail to do that.

Q: What’s the biggest lie e-commerce gurus tell?

It’s not easy. They usually sell you the “within 90 days” thing. If you don’t know anything about e-commerce, 90 days is short. It costs a lot of investment. It really takes a lot of effort and a lot of patience, and most people can’t do that. That’s the main thing.

Q: What was your lowest point this year?

Last year was one of my best years, financially. Then around February this year, things just started coming at me at once. Two lawyers were suing me at the same time, both trying to get all my money.

One case came from a mistake one of my employees made while we were scaling hard. I was in Colombia with my business partner, and I also had a Shopify hold locking up all my money, which I needed to pay for team costs and product costs.

I fixed the Shopify hold with a tweet that went viral. I think even the president or CEO of Shopify saw it. But the lawyers took four months to resolve.

And on top of all that, I noticed during my weekly network check, where I go through how much money we have across all our businesses, that we were missing 50 to 100K somewhere.

We searched for it for two weeks and found out it was a payment processor called Ocean Payments not coming through correctly.

All of this together took my focus off growing the business. I would wake up to five phone calls from lawyers in the Netherlands. I don’t know if you’ve ever been sued, but the way lawyers talk to you, they’re nice to you in a way that tells you they’re not nice.

I wasn’t really in a financial low, but personally, my day-to-day was just not in a positive mindset. I learned that this is kind of what you go through as an entrepreneur.

Someone once said that if you don’t get sued as a business owner, you’re not really doing business. I guess it’ll probably be the first of many.

Q: Why are there so many Dutch e-commerce entrepreneurs?

It is accurate. Back around 2018, we had our own versions of the big online business influencers, people teaching Amazon FBA and dropshipping. I actually bought one of those courses at the time.

A lot of Dutch kids saw for the first time that you could work for yourself, that you didn’t need a lot of money or experience to build something. I never thought you could do that. And when we all saw it, we just took it very seriously.

I was at a Capital Club event in Bali, about 300 people in Indonesia. I think 85% were Dutch, and everyone was doing e-com.

Even here in New York, at a dinner with some big players, there were all Americans, but three Dutch guys, for some reason. There’s always Dutch guys there.

Q: If someone is starting a brand from scratch, what’s the most important skill to build?

Get good at content and Facebook ads. If you can become good at making ads and combine that with Facebook, you’re never going to be broke for the rest of your life. That’s what I believe.

If you have no money, start on TikTok, making content for someone else’s products. But on the brand side, it’s mostly about creative output, and that will get you your first sales. What you want is momentum.

Get that momentum going, whatever it takes. Momentum is really what gets you from zero to a hundred.

Q: What stops people from ever reaching $10K a month?

Quitting. Giving up too easily. It’s always going to get harder before it gets easier. And $10K a month in e-com is actually not that much but most people give up before they get there.

If you don’t quit, you’ll make it. It might take a year or two, but you’ll get there if you put in the hours and learn from your mistakes.

Q: What’s the key unlock from $10K to $100K months?

More creative output and more ad budget. Upsells, cross-sells. If you’re serious about branding, get your lifetime value up so you can spend more on ads. Get your average order value higher.

But honestly, to get to $100K months, you don’t even need all of that. I’ve done $100K months with a single creative and held that for two or three months straight. It really is about the creatives. That’s why I keep coming back to it.

Q: What’s your biggest contrarian take?

Self-belief. You really need to believe you can do this. But beyond that, you need to be genuinely selective and willing to stand your ground.

You need to say no to a lot of things, because when you say yes to one thing, you’re saying no to another. Knowing what you want makes decisions easy. Decisions lead to actions. Actions lead to results.

In business, people need to know they cannot take advantage of you. You need to always stand your ground. Some people know they can push you around, that is not a good thing.

You have to be strict, especially with people you work with.

Q: If you had a billboard in Times Square, what would it say?

Life is actually kind of a game. Anything you desire, you can get.

Put in the work and you’ll be up there.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – “No Shipping” Vibes: What It Means

03:39 – The Dropshipper Meme vs Reality

05:25 – Why E-Commerce Courses Get a Bad Rap

07:24 – Is Coaching Worth It?

09:02 – The Biggest Lie E-Commerce Gurus Tell

10:00 – His Lowest Point: Lawsuits and a Shopify Hold

14:17 – Why So Many E-Commerce Founders Are Dutch

18:12 – Why Bali Became an E-Commerce Hub

19:54 – Starting From Scratch: Ads and Content

22:01 – What Stops Beginners Before $10K

22:48 – The Unlock From $10K to $100K

25:05 – How He Uses AI in E-Commerce

26:30 – Shopify, Amazon FBA or Something Else?

28:35 – Mornings, Routines and Coffee

31:13 – The Surrender Experiment and Letting Go

35:16 – His Contrarian Take and a Times Square Message