Start and Scale Review (Gretta Van Riel Course)

Gretta Van Riel’s Start and Scale course offers a different perspective for the creative businessmen (and women) who want to not only start a business but to commercialise their own product, their own idea.

This course is currently closed, and you will be on a waitlist until it is open. It’s price runs over $547, and it may go up once the course restarts.

Not sure if this is the course for you or if you should wait to give it an opportunity? Then let me give you my point of view from my own experience, so you can decide if it’s worth your money and time.

Start and Scale Pros & Cons

You may already have a clue from my words up until this point, but now it’s the moment you find out whether or not this course is one you should take or not.

As you may have read, the first group that can benefit from this group—and the one that can do so the most—are complete beginners: those have the will and motivation to start their own online business but lack all the knowledge necessary to do so.

The course takes you to the very first steps necessary to build your online store and products. No, it’s not the process of creating your online store over a platform like Shopify, but actually coming up with the idea of your venture, what you want it to be, what you want to offer, how you want to offer it, and what branding you want to use.

The other group is those who have saved up a fairly large budget for investment—this is also necessary for the first group to have.

You see, this isn’t really a dropshipping course like the others out there. Instead, it guides you through the design of your own products for them to be manufactured by the suppliers.

We can translate that into you needing to have the capital to invest in your products.

Who is Gretta Van Riel, The Founder of Start and Scale?

She’s also known as Gretta Rose Van Riel, and she’s an Australian serial entrepreneur.

Despite being relatively young, she claims to have created more several brands and startups that have generated millions of dollars in profits each. Her portfolio does have some proof of her success in the form of SkinnyMe Tea and 5TH Watches, although she left them a year ago due to her switching her focus from those industries into new ventures.

She’s also active outside of the eCommerce market. She’s known to be a talented marketer in the field of social media, with the merit of having built her own platform for the management of influencer relationship marketing, which is called “Hey Influencers.”

She built the Start and Scale course to teach you how to build your own online store and brand with the same strategies she used for her 5TH Watches and SkinnyMe Tea ventures.

As such, it’s easy to take an interest in the course, for Gretta admittedly has a fairly impressive portfolio behind her; you could say that she has proven at least part of the success she claims to have.

I did look up all of what I’m telling you right now, and when I saw the large demand for her course (I signed up on a similar waiting list that existed before), I was definitely impressed.

What is Included in Start and Scale?

Now it’s time to through the modules themselves and the bonuses offered by Start and Scale.

1. Finding Your Idea.

It’s a good overview of how to come up with your business idea and how to stand out from your competition as you develop your business plan.

2. Million-Dollar Branding.

Here’s where the course starts to teach you about creating unique branding, choosing the right name and products, and it closes with how to buy your domain and build your store.

3. From Idea To Inventory.

Gretta teaches you how to make your product (and its prototype) into a manufactured good. She tells you how to negotiate with suppliers, package your product, price it, and sell it.

4. How To Build A Hungry Audience Of Buyers?

This is the module dedicated to marketing psychology, with Nathan Chan as a guest in one of the videos. It then goes into building waitlists (suspicious) and using referral marketing.

5. How To Launch Your Store To Sales?

It follows up on the launching tips briefly given at the end of the video before teaching you how to handle payments and customer support.

It includes a checklist by Gretta to launching your store.

6. How To Scale Your Online Store?

Here’s where you learn how to scale your business after you start scoring sales. Gretta shares her own strategies and some other tips like discount codes and upsells.

As for the bonuses:

1. Private Facebook Group.

Like other courses, Start and Scale offer a private Facebook group to contact other students and generally resolve doubts.

2. “$40 Million A Year Influencer Marketing Secrets.

It includes an interview with Alex Tomic and Nik Mirkovic (HiSmile) where they outline the steps to building their brand.

3. Copy And Paste Templates.

These are simple scripts for you to use in email marketing and to contact influencers. They work better as a guide to developing your own since they do read a bit unnatural and many of the course members are probably using them already.

4. Facebook and Instagram Ads Training.

This is just a small course on how to use the platforms.

5. Business Partner Joins Free.

This is a neat addition: if you have a business partner, they can join the training with an extra license given to you.

Personal Experience With Start and Scale

As previously stated, I took the course because I was surprised by her experience.

And you know? Her content is actually surprisingly good, especially compared with others out there. However, the price is simply too much.

I did finish it, but the “surprisingly good” is still somewhat disappointing. Most of the videos go straight to the point and leave many details untouched—details which could be important for many entrepreneurs.

Another disappointment is the lack of a serious Facebook Ads class.

We all know that can make or break a course, and Start And Scale definitely fall short on that. The “class” included feels rushed, and it makes you think it was simply added because “courses must include a Facebook Ads section”.

I managed to pick up a couple of things on branding, but the classes are mostly for beginners, and I wasn’t interested in developing my own products.

Start and Scale Scam?

Nope, Start and Scale is not a scam however, there are definitely better courses out there you can get like eCom Elites.

Is there a Discount Code?

There is no discount/coupon for Gretta Van Riel’s Start and Scale course.

There are other sites claiming they either have Start and Scale Coupon or Start and Scale Discount but, this is definitely not true. Also, Start and Scale Nulled or Start and Scale Free is not a thing.

Start And Scale Final Verdict

Start And Scale is a course with a bit of potential, that’s obscured by an excessive price tag and a lack of content.

It is interesting when it touches on branding and developing your business, but when you look at the larger picture, there are as many better courses as there are worse ones.

If the cost of taking the course was reduced and Gretta showed in more videos (she doesn’t appear in several of them, which is disappointing as well), then this would be extremely easy to recommend.

Start and Scale Alternative