Every big brand starts in the trenches—and Ashley Chang is living proof that grassroots growth still wins. After watching her mom leave a software-engineering career to raise a family, Ashley made it her mission to build a future where no one has to choose between work and home. The result: Sundays—a company helping parents “scale their lives, not just their work.”

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In this episode, Ashley shares how she:

• Personally interviewed 1,000+ parents before writing a single line of code.
• Printed flyers, taped them to telephone poles in San Francisco, and built her first customer base from there.
• Bootstrapped her company methodically to the $1 million mark—without a dime of traditional funding.
• Turned human connection (not algorithms) into Sundays’ most powerful marketing channel.

If you’ve ever felt like you “need funding to grow,” this one proves how far resourcefulness, empathy, and great storytelling can take you.

Timestamps

0:48 – Meet Ashley Chang: from Carta & Collective Health to starting Sundays
4:56 – Why she interviewed 1,000+ parents before launching
9:08 – Version 1: the “email-and-text” MVP that taught her everything
11:08 – Bootstrapping 101: blue flyers, printers, and San Francisco telephone poles
14:00 – LinkedIn as Sundays’ secret growth engine
17:10 – The hardest choices in a bootstrapped startup (and how she made them)
27:10 – Building a team of 30 moms—and why human connection beats AI
35:36 – How becoming a mom herself changed her mission
45:16 – Ashley’s High / Low / Stow 

🔗 Connect with Ashley & Sundays

• Website: withsundays.com
• LinkedIn: Ashley Chang
• Instagram: @with_sundays

Meet Your Hosts

Lauren Loreto

• Founder of Brand Good Time
• Expert in content marketing and web design
• Website: brandgoodtime.com
• Instagram: @brandgoodtime

Aurrie Hicks

• Founder of Hopson Rae
• Expert in digital content and brand strategy
• Website: hopsonrae.com
• Instagram: @hopsonrae

🎧 Listen & Subscribe

Follow Mapped Out wherever you get your podcasts—and don’t miss the next stop in Season 3 as we continue unpacking how the industry’s best marketers built their brands from the ground up.