Sweat Equity and Waiting to Pay Founders

Natalie Barbu is the founder and CEO of Rella, a SaaS platform built to streamline collaboration and workflows for social media teams and agencies. She began as a YouTube creator, grew a following of over 300,000, and then identified the fragmentation of the creator tools market — which led her to build Rella 1.0.

With some small seed funding, the first Rella version focused on content creators and made no revenue with a freemium model. With $25K in the bank and no revenue, the four cofounders thought they would shut it down. But a viral video focused on social media teams immediately created paid users and revenue for a new Rella product.

"Rella 2.0" now offers all-in-one content planning, scheduling, collaboration boards, billing & analytics, an AI content strategist, and all in one workspace — for social media teams. In just 12 months, they went from having no revenue, no funding, and a hard pivot relaunch to almost $3M in ARR run-rate revenue — with only four co-founder employees.

Key Takeaways

• Charge Early: They learned the hard way that free users don't convert — monetization early was non-negotiable.
• Lean Teams Win: A small, focused team aligned tightly with a mission beats trying to scale prematurely.
• Community Is Fuel: Natalie shared behind-the-scenes of the product with early users — built trust + word-of-mouth.
• Pivot Smart: They transitioned from creator workflow tools to a full SaaS platform after validating demand.

This Interview Is Perfect For

• SaaS founders pivoting after a stalled product
• Founders learning how to find product-market fit
• Teams deciding when to hire or stay lean
• Builders designing tools for marketing and content teams

Quote from Natalie Barbu, founder and CEO of Rella

"It was about two years before we decided to pay ourselves. I was still making money from my social media. So that's how I supported myself. And then my co-founders had to find side things, which I know a lot of people say, you have to be a hundred percent all in and invested in it.

"But when you're not making money, you need to find a way to support yourself. So yeah, they had some side gigs that they were working on while still working full-time on Rella.

"Once we started making more money with Rella 2.0, we all bumped ourselves up and got some raises since we could afford it, which has been such an accomplishment. It's money that we're actually making from our customers and our users and the income that we're generating."

Links

• Natalie Barbu on LinkedIn
• Rella on LinkedIn
• Rella website - Use this 10% Discount Code for Rella - practical

This podcast is sponsored by Cypress Growth Capital, an alternative to equity, royalty-based growth capital provides funding in exchange for a fixed percentage of your company's future monthly revenues. Learn more at https://www.cypressgrowthcapital.com/

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