Alan Frei Amorana: The Founder Story

In 2014, I co-founded Amorana with Lukas Speiser in Zurich. Amorana started as a Swiss online shop for sex toys, lingerie and sexual wellness products in one of the most conservative markets for this category.

At the beginning, it was a small e-commerce experiment. Within a few years, Amorana became one of Switzerland’s best-known e-commerce startups and a leading online retailer for sexual wellness.

In 2020, the UK-based Lovehoney Group acquired a majority stake in Amorana. I stayed on as CMO, and in 2022 I sold my remaining shares and moved on.

This is the story of how we built Amorana, what worked, what almost failed, and what I learned from building the company that changed everything.

Before Amorana: Ten Years of Failed Ideas

Before Amorana, I spent almost ten years testing business ideas that did not work.

Some barely launched. Some launched and nobody cared. I studied Economics and Sinology at the University of Zurich and in Nanjing, China, and later headed the Startup Center at the University of Zurich. During that time, I kept experimenting with different startup ideas, side projects and business models.

Most of them failed.

But looking back, that was the training ground.

Founding Amorana with Lukas Speiser in 2014

The Alan Frei Amorana story really started in 2014, when I co-founded Amorana with Lukas Speiser in Zurich.

Lukas and I had met during our studies in Zurich. He had spent several years in investment banking, while I had been running the university’s startup center. We reconnected, brainstormed and landed on e-commerce in the erotic lifestyle and sexual wellness space.

At the time, Switzerland had almost no modern online suppliers for this category. The market was conservative, the buying experience felt outdated, and most people still felt uncomfortable talking openly about sex toys, lingerie and sexual wellness products.

We launched Amorana.ch on February 24, 2014. Our first product was the Lovebox, a curated subscription box. The timing helped: Fifty Shades of Grey was everywhere, and suddenly the whole country was talking about exactly the kind of products we were selling.

How Amorana Grew in Switzerland

Amorana grew because we made sexual wellness feel more normal, modern and accessible in Switzerland.

In the beginning, Amorana was still a small experiment. A simple online shop, a few first orders and a category most people did not want to talk about openly. But that was exactly the opportunity. Shops were hidden, branding was outdated, and the topic was treated like something strange.

We wanted to change that.

Our idea was simple: make sexual wellness normal. We tested almost every marketing channel: PR, TV, sponsored content, word-of-mouth campaigns and creative stunts that made people talk. One campaign allowed army recruits to send gifts to their girlfriends for free. Another big success was Switzerland’s first erotic advent calendar, which became a bestseller every year.

Instead of making people feel uncomfortable, Amorana gave them an easy, discreet and fun way to discover the category.

Scaling Amorana with Focus

Scaling Amorana taught me one of the most important startup lessons: focus beats random ideas.

Entrepreneurs always have new ideas. That sounds good, but it can also be dangerous. At Amorana, we had to say no to many things in order to make one thing work.

No new random projects. No distractions. No chasing every shiny opportunity. Just improving the shop, the marketing, the logistics, the customer experience, the conversion rate and the brand.

Again and again, we focused on making the core business better.

I focused on marketing and sales as CMO, while Lukas led the company as CEO. That combination worked. We grew from two founders into a team of 34 people and built Amorana into one of Switzerland’s best-known e-commerce startups.

The Lovehoney Deal in 2020

In 2020, the UK-based Lovehoney Group acquired a majority stake in Amorana.

For Amorana, this was a major milestone. Lovehoney was one of the leading global brands in the sexual wellness industry, with strong positions across several markets. With their backing, Amorana could strengthen its position in Switzerland and look more seriously at European expansion.

Lukas stayed on as CEO, and I stayed on as CMO. We both remained shareholders.

For me, this was not just a business transaction. It was the first time after many years of trying, failing, living cheaply and building things from scratch that one of my projects had really worked.

Amorana gave me financial stability. More importantly, it gave me freedom to work on new ideas.

Moving On from Amorana in 2022

In 2022, I sold my remaining shares in Amorana and left the company.

It was time. Amorana was in good hands, and I wanted to start something new. Something built around content, community, events and products for people who want to optimize their lives.

That became the Alan Frei Company.

Looking back, Amorana was the project that changed everything. Not just financially, but in how I think about building companies, taking risks, staying focused and knowing when to let go.

Many of the lessons from Amorana later became part of my Startup Guide, where I share what I learned from building, failing and testing ideas in a simple and practical way.