Peloton becoming another Weight Watchers, only much faster. McKinsey hired for restructuring.

uhhhhhhhhhhh wrote:

Charles Bukowski wrote:

Business is damn hard. Making a profit is damn hard. Sustaining it is even harder.

God bless those that actually become successful. The pioneers and entrepreneurs deserve the big payouts for the big risks and hard work.

I guess I don't understand this line of thinking. If the entrepreneur fails, the investors are the ones who lose money, and the entrepreneur often is compensated quite well before the other shoe drops. And then the entrepreneur goes on and tries again, building sandcastles financed by other rich people. When they end up striking it truly rich, I have a hard time being like "kudos, you really risked everything and you deserve every penny of your outsized compensation".

Clearly you don't understand. I'll teach you. Typically the entrepreneur has invested his life savings (and maxing out credit cards) into his startup. On top of that, they often work 24/7 without taking a salary for a long time in addition to personally dealing with every conceivable headache and mundane detail from ordering printer toner to paying the utility bills.

If you think the typical entrepreneur has no skin in the game and has other people funding his whack idea you are living in a fantasy world. Meaningful outside capital doesn't usually come in until well after things have progressed significantly. VC guys are rich for a reason. They take calculated risk and they get A LOT (in terms of ownership) for their invested capital.

Totally agree, the product is quite good. So was Nordic Track. And Jane Fonda's workout VHS. And steppin' to the oldies. And the thigh master. And p90X. And Tae Bo. And Bow Flex...

Something tells me he has paying too much attention to the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos story.

Charles Bukowski wrote:

Business is damn hard. Making a profit is damn hard. Sustaining it is even harder.

God bless those that actually become successful. The pioneers and entrepreneurs deserve the big payouts for the big risks and hard work.

☝️ this 100%

I bought the Peloton bike for my wife after a nasty outdoor biking accident.

She loved the bike and I was sure I'd dislike it as the guys I rode outdoors with always made fun of Peloton riders.

I hopped on expecting an easy ride and was sure I'd hate it.

Well I liked it as it improved my fitness, lost weight and and rode inside on days when I couldnt ride outside.

Then I bought the treadmill, I've gotten much fitter and am running outdoors.

I'll be racing again and Peloton gets lots of the credit.

Sure, some of the instructors are corny but you find your people.

The product works.

Bring the hate on!!!!

this actually kind of surprises me - I thought Peloton would be the darling success story of the pandemic. I'm assuming it has nothing to do with their product and just a poorly managed business.

I sat in on a pre-IPO meeting with their CFO. She boasted about how they were many things as a company: hardware manufacturer, logistics provider, music studio, production studio, merchandiser, digital platform, etc.

There’s an old business truism that you need to define your core product and stick to it. Peloton is too broad in its ambitions. They should have outsourced the manufacturing and logistics at least. I’ve been on the Peloton bike—it’s mediocre. Much worse than the Keiser bike my wife uses, or the Wahoo Kickr trainer and Kickr Bike I use.

I’ve done a few workouts and found them underwhelming. A lot of rah-rah hooting and hollering, although it’s nice to look at the hot babes. You don’t burn a lot of calories in 30-45 minutes on a bike. The perceived effort is high, because you can get a good sweat going in that time.

But if it works for you, then by all means.

Charles

You're responding to an alt left, anti-work, bernie fanboy. I wouldn't bother with the effort.

If you're a CEO of Peloton, do you even care at this point? He already banked what a billion $ in stock sales. Pandemic stock plays are all getting killed. NFLX tonight. To those who were bold enough to have shorted the Peloton stock and had the means to hold through the lies won. This is why you need money to make money. I bet so many people got burned when the stock rocketed and got margin called.

I remember they had a spot at Roosevelt Field mall for years. I rarely ever see anyone going into the kiosk. American hate exercising but even more so if you have to $2000 for a bike and pay more every month. Think of it as useless gym membership for the Covid down time.

Not just today. PTON has lost nearly 85% of the value it had one year ago. Down 81% in the last six months.

blah blah this dude was the president of barnes and noble, gimme a break shark tank boys

Want a balanced answer? I bought a Peloton a year ago and love it. I use it as a substitute for easy runs a couple times per week. It's less mind numbing than running sometimes and biking outside looks super gay. That said all the people who were going to get one already did last year and they ran out of clients. Just like covid will be over when we run out of fat and old people. Peloton is a good product but they got greedy and overestimated demand.

Truffle Shuffle wrote:

this actually kind of surprises me - I thought Peloton would be the darling success story of the pandemic. I'm assuming it has nothing to do with their product and just a poorly managed business.

I have no idea if the company is really poorly run, but it should always have been obvious to everyone that a business like Peloton would revert to close to its pre-pandemic market penetration. Some people want a gym, some people want an in home option. I don’t see why the pandemic would change that long term.

Boston Consulting Group wrote:

If you need to hire McKinsey, it's a downhill ride from there.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-01-18/peloton-reviews-cost-structure-with-mckinsey-may-cut-jobs-cnbc

Not as bad as Accidenture.

Afghani couch wrote:

always thought PTON was such a fkking joke. A way to steal money from rich white women. Everyone that I know w/ a PTON is an upper class white woman who works in business/finance.

Love seeing the stock absolutely decimated today.

I have nothing against PTON as a company or the bike itself (tried my friend's) but your comment is 100%

Rich white women do a lot of purchasing/buying and really are the typical American woman nowadays, plus more of them are heads of the household. The men are usually divorced and living in small apartments and the women get the house and kids.

If not business/finance, the women are in STEM or media, have dogs/pets, and vote D.

I thought this situation was insightful on this topic:

Yesterday I was participating in a training webcast. One of the presenters is a triathlete from the New York. When the moderator was introducing the presenters, she mentioned the one's triathlon training, and then noted "well perhaps not in January". I went for a run outside after the webcast in 25F weather and snow on the ground. Pelotons are for some people, others not so much.

still pretty funny

Wasn't it peloton that aired the commercial with the husband giving his fat wife a bike as a surprise