A month in, 1,000 people are using Swiss Gems
The honest account of how it happened: what actually drove it, in what order, what surprised me, and what we are building next. No dressing it up.
A little over four weeks after we opened Swiss Gems to the public, it passed 1,000 users. That was a good few weeks ago now, and we are past 1,500 today, so this is the look back with the numbers settled: what actually drove it, in what order, and what surprised me along the way. If you are building something similar, the useful parts are in here.
One thousand, and what that means
First, what a user is here, so the number means something. Swiss Gems is a paid guide to 141 spots across Switzerland, CHF 27, one time. A user is someone who bought it and opened it. So 1,000 is not followers, not email signups, not people who clicked an ad once. It is a thousand people who now plan their weekends with something we made. That difference is the whole reason the number is worth writing down.
What actually drove it, in order
Here is the honest ranking, because the order surprised me more than anything else did.
The biggest driver was not our loyal audience. It was organic viewers who had never followed us. A Reel reaches far more people than your follower count, and most of them are strangers who watch once and scroll on. We caught them with ManyChat: comment a keyword, get a DM, and the DM answers the usual questions and points to the guide. That funnel turned free organic reach into buyers at no ad cost, and it quietly became most of the first thousand. I did not expect it to be number one.
Paid ads were second, and they were profitable. Not a rescue and not a money pit, just a channel that paid for itself and could take more budget.
Our existing subscribers and followers were third. The people most likely to buy, on paper, mattered less than the two channels above them. Worth remembering the next time someone tells you the whole game is nurturing the audience you already have.
One smaller note that might save you a test: Instagram converted a bit better than TikTok for us, on the same content and the same funnel.
One product, five audiences
One more thing we learned, and it is a separate point from the channels above: Swiss Gems is not one product for one kind of person. The same 141 spots and the same CHF 27 land differently depending on who is looking, so we introduced it with a different angle for each:
- Wild campers want to know where they can actually sleep without a fine.
- Photographers want the shot, and the walk to reach it before the light goes.
- Day hikers want one good route for the weekend that is not already packed.
- Tourists want the version of Switzerland that is not on the first page of every search.
- Swiss locals want the spots even they have not found.
Same 141 spots, same CHF 27, five completely different first lines.
We rebuilt the sales page until it converted
The page in the middle mattered as much as the traffic hitting it. We tested a lot of versions: a different headline, a different first photo, a different order, the proof higher or lower, the price framed differently. Most landed within noise of each other. One did not. The best version converts above 4 percent. On a CHF 27 product, that number is what lets both the free funnel and paid traffic pay off.
There is no trick in it. We did not guess the winning page. We shipped many, let the numbers pick one, then pointed the ads at that one.
What's next
Two things. First, keep scaling what already works: the ManyChat funnel on organic reach, and the paid ads that pay for themselves.
Second, and this is the bigger one. Switzerland is one country, and Hikebeast is one person's map of it. None of the playbook above is Swiss. Know a place properly, build a clean guide to it, catch the organic reach you are already getting with a funnel, run ads that pay, and speak to each kind of visitor in their own words. That works for a valley in Austria, a coast in Portugal or a national park in the US as well as it works here.
So the next build is a platform that lets other people do exactly this for the places they know best. Their spots, their audience, the same machinery underneath. That is what we are working on now, and 1,000 users is the proof it is worth building on top of.
More when there is more to show.
Leon Helg
Swiss filmmaker and software developer. Built Hikebeast over five years, 141 Swiss spots documented, and writes up the building of it here. Posts as @leon.helg on Instagram and TikTok.