Business strategy

Natalie Barbu: how a client skit helped sell Rella

Natalie Barbu rebuilt Rella for social media managers, then used a simple skit about a difficult client to help find paying customers.

1 October 20262 min read7 min listen

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Its own script, written for listening.

Natalie Barbou was sitting on just $25,000 with a product that everyone seemed to love, but no one was actually paying for.

Editor's note

Why this matters now

Natalie Barbu says a skit with about 60,000 views helped Rella's monthly revenue rise from $3,500 in October to more than $21,000 in November. She played a social media manager and a client, acting out a frustration her customers knew well.

The video followed a much bigger change: Rella had rebuilt its product for social media managers and teams. Earlier, the company had tried to serve several different kinds of users and was down to $25,000 in the bank.

The skit makes sense once you know who could buy the product. A million strangers would have been a less promising audience.

The source

What it says

Distilled from the original. The notes above and below are the editor's own.

A product with too many customers in mind

Rella initially tried to serve influencers, talent managers, in-house teams, and social media managers. Barbu calls the result a Frankenstein product. Features added for one group got in the way of another.

The company reached 10,000 downloads. People expressed interest and signed up, but too few paid. With $25,000 left, the team had to find customers whose need was strong enough to support the business.

Social media managers and professional teams had recurring work to organise for clients. Rella narrowed the product around them and rebuilt it in about 2 months. Familiar project management patterns helped the team design for those workflows.

The client skit

Barbu filmed herself playing both sides of a client-manager exchange. The setup made an everyday customer problem recognisable without needing an elaborate production.

She connects that video, with roughly 60,000 views, to the jump from $3,500 to more than $21,000 in monthly revenue. She says Rella reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue within 11 months of the relaunch.

Those are Barbu's reported figures. The product pivot and the content worked together, so the interview cannot tell us how much of the revenue increase belonged to the video alone.

Her approach to paid promotion was to amplify content that had already shown promise organically. The organic response gave her something to examine before spending.

Stay close to the support inbox

The founders continued handling customer support as the business grew. That kept complaints and requests close to the people deciding what to build.

Barbu also discusses sharing the company's progress publicly, including failures that can be uncomfortable to admit. The content had a person behind it, and customers could speak to the people making the product. In her account, those conversations helped Rella keep improving after the relaunch.

Editor's note

What to do with this

The next skit could come from your support inbox. Find a complaint that keeps appearing among paying customers and describe the situation in the customer's words.

After publishing, follow the trials and purchases as well as the views. If people watch but never try the product, check whether the joke reached the intended customers and whether the product actually helps with the problem you showed.

Explore The Anatomy of a Dream feature.

The original

Social Media Expert: The Content Strategy That Turned Into MILLIONS

The Anatomy of a Dream