What You'll Learn
How Tanya Van Gastel Built a $358K Business on a Zero Budget
In this Create With 2025 conversation Tanya Van Gastel walks through the practical, repeatable moves she used to scale to $358K in revenue without taking external funding or spending on paid ads. The talk is full of founder level advice you can apply whether you are building a SaaS, a niche product, or a service business.
Why bootstrapping forces clarity
Tanya’s core argument is that constraints create focus. With no marketing budget you are forced to understand who will actually pay for your product and why. That pressure accelerates customer interviews, rapid iteration, and early monetisation — all of which reduce wasted effort.
Key actions she recommends:
- Start selling before you build. Run quick conversations and sell early access or preorders to validate demand.
- Track unit economics from day one so every decision is guided by profitability not vanity metrics.
Low cost acquisition channels that scale
Instead of paid ads Tanya leaned into content and community. She treated content as a sales channel:
- Create educational posts that solve the exact problems of your ideal customer.
- Use public case studies and customer interviews to demonstrate value.
- Invest time in niche communities and partnerships where trust compounds with minimal dollars.
Actionable steps:
1. Identify 3 forums or communities where your customers hang out.
2. Share one real customer result as a short case study each week.
3. Repurpose that post into different formats to reach broader audiences.
Product market fit first then growth
Tanya emphasises shipping a small core product quickly and iterating with real customers. Instead of adding features because they sound interesting, she recommends prioritising the features that demonstrably increase retention or revenue.
A simple prioritisation framework she uses:
- Score ideas by customer demand, implementation cost, and impact on revenue.
- Build the smallest possible version to test impact.
- Measure and either iterate or deprioritise.
Pricing and packaging: optimise for clarity and conversion
Rather than complex tiering, Tanya tested simple pricing experiments to find what customers would pay. She recommends price anchoring with clear outcomes, not feature lists.
Practical pricing experiments:
- Offer a single clear plan for new users and a custom plan for larger customers.
- Run short priced trials or pilot programs to reduce buyer friction while preserving revenue.
Reinvest profits into high ROI activities
Because Tanya did not have investor capital she reinvested cash flow selectively. She focused on channels and hires that produced measurable returns.
Where to spend first:
- Time on content that converts to leads.
- A specialist contractor for a high impact task rather than a full time hire.
- Tools that automate repetitive work once volume justifies the spend.
Team and outsourcing: stay scrappy
Tanya suggests staying lean and outsourcing non core tasks. Hire contractors for design, ops, or admin so founders can focus on strategy, sales, and product.
Checklist for outsourcing:
- Document the process and expected outcomes.
- Start with a 30 day paid trial to validate the contractor.
- Tie contractor KPIs to measurable outputs.
Metrics to watch
Tanya tracked a short list of KPIs religiously:
- Monthly recurring revenue or equivalent revenue run rate
- Customer acquisition channels and cost per acquisition even if spend is zero (time cost)
- Retention or repeat purchase rate
- Gross margin per customer
Focus on the metrics that influence cash flow and survival.
Action plan you can use this week
1. Run five customer discovery calls and propose a paid pilot.
2. Publish one short case study about a real customer outcome.
3. Choose one community and commit to daily value contributions for two weeks.
4. List your top three product features and rank them by likely revenue impact.
5. Identify one repetitive task to outsource and post a 30 day job on a freelancer platform.
Final thoughts
Tanya’s story is a reminder that smart discipline, clarity on customers, and relentless focus on ROI can power serious growth without outside capital. If you are building on a shoestring budget use constraints to sharpen your priorities, ship fast, and measure everything.
If you found these takeaways useful check out more Create With sessions for founder interviews and practical growth tactics you can apply today.
