From community to subscription.
A personal brand with a subscription model. A team of 35+ people and 15 external developers. I worked with them from 2020 to 2026, first through Vieli and then on my own.
Figures marked "Forbes, 2021" come from Forbes Colombia (February 7, 2021). The rest are the project's own data. Source: Forbes Colombia ↗ (opens in a new tab)
The full story
- August 2020
A community with no revenue
Silvy had around 1M followers and ran live workouts on Instagram every day, but the community made no money. She hired Vieli to turn it into a business, and I took on the project.
- December 2020
The MVP: an 8-week challenge
Before any app, we sold an 8-week challenge for women aged 18 to 50: 60 at-home workout videos, a nutrition plan personalized by a nutritionist and daily WhatsApp support. I built it on WordPress and LearnDash, and set up the funnel, email, automations, content platform and payments myself. It launched on December 17: USD 400k and 5,000 subscribers in the first week, and USD 800k across the full launch.
- The next challenges
Repeat and measure
Three more challenges followed with the same mechanic. Each one added paid media, SEO, SEM and analytics, and I led all of the marketing. The launch metric was visit to purchase, and A/B tests at checkout took it from 3% to 4%. 252 people bought a USD 300 personalized nutrition plan.
- From challenge to app
Trainerize, then FitBudd
We moved to an in-app subscription. Trainerize fell short, so we switched to FitBudd, with native iOS and Android apps. I designed the onboarding, paywall, plans and 7-day free trial, working directly with FitBudd's development team. By 2022 there were 20,000 users paying every month.
- Pricing
From USD 29 to USD 39 a month
As the audience grew in the US, the Middle East, Australia and Spain, we raised the price. Churn didn't go up and new sales held steady.
- Their own app
When the platform falls short
FitBudd couldn't show local currency by country or debit Bancolombia accounts automatically. I made the case for a custom app and led the move.
- June 2026
Closing my chapter
I worked on silBe until June 2026, first through Vieli and then on my own. Today Silvy has 3M+ followers and the brand has 25,000 paying subscribers. More than 100,000 people have subscribed since launch.
What I did
I designed the MVP: an 8-week challenge with a personalized meal plan and WhatsApp support.
I built the full funnel: waitlist, landing page, checkout, email marketing and automations.
I worked on conversion: interest-free installments, cash payments (Efecty and Baloto), just 2 plans, a nutrition upsell, WhatsApp cart recovery, a trained sales chat and A/B tests at checkout.
I handled the move to an app (Trainerize, FitBudd and then their own app), designing the onboarding, paywall, plans and a 7-day free trial.