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Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

blackwellscap.com

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Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#211

Post by 999900000999 »

"POOR DECISION MAKING: UNNECESSARY & EXPENSIVE OFFICE SPACE IN NYC"

This whole report is absolutely scathing, but this particularly stood out to me. I've actually been in a similar situation where a CEO decided he was going to rent extremely expensive office space, in one of the most over the top pricey areas of Los Angeles, simply because it was close to his residence.

This snowballed into other various stupid financial choices, and I was lucky enough to get out before the entire office got fired.

This serves as a very good argument for fully remote companies. Get a corporate we work account for the extremely rare case where you need a physical presence.

The brand is pretty damaged though. They had a short window where the Equinox crowd had nowhere to spend their exorbitant incomes. No shortage of cheaper alternatives exist. I suggest buying a used exercise bike and playing Eye of the Tiger on repeat for 30 minutes.

Infact if you don't have access to Eye of the Tiger you can just sing it to yourself.

Eye of the tiger it's the thrill of the fight, saving money on a used bikes.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#212

Post by mvkel »

ranrotx wrote: post #193
shmatt wrote: post #191

The fact is. Not every company can be a $12B company. Peloton might be a super successful $1B company, who slowly tries to creep into new areas for growth. And it sounds like Blackwell understand this, and instead of pushing for Peloton to focus internally on its product and get rid of the extra fat, they want a fast sale to a not-really-smart company. So they can at least get some ROI People talk about monthly fees…

Their apparel brand is a joke. It’s run by Foley’s wife. Unless I messed something, what experience or qualification does she have in apparel? Never mind the fact that I’ve maybe seen only 3 people in the real world wearing anything that is Peloton branded (no, the free Century t-shirt doesn’t count). Personally, I find their apparel to be a little loud and obnoxious, but that’s just me. As a consumer, I don’t see wh…

Any clothing with a logo on it is nothing new, just branding. Nike does pretty well.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#213

Post by lancesells »

olliej wrote: post #39
auggierose wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that similar to a video store masquerading as a tech company? Or a book store masquerading as a tech company? Or an apple masquerading ... Oh wait, that actually IS a tech company.

I know plenty of people who argue about whether Netflix is a tech company - certainly their infrastructure is non-trivial but are they meaningfully different from HBO? For Amazon though, it's incorrect to refer to them as a bookstore - AWS is a huge portion of their revenue. On the other hand you have Google and Facebook that people call technology companies, but their core business is advertising. I think at this po…

I think of tech companies whose main purpose is to sell or make software for businesses and people. Netflix is a media company. Tesla is a car company. Apple is both a consumer device company and tech company. Peleton is a fitness company.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#214

Post by spookthesunset »

dustymcp wrote: post #209
DrBazza wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seemed more like a niche product Yes. The Peloton 'model' reminds me of the gym model, at least in the UK. You always get a bunch of people sign up in 'fat' January for 12 months. They go to the the gym for a few weeks and stop. But continue paying £50pm or whatever for the next 11 months. Peloton feels similar in that people are made to want the shiny thing in the TV adverts, find that they don't have a room wi…

Being a cyclist All my life i never understood those bikes you dont get fresh air or the navigation fun of finding new ways to explore :)

It depends on the climate of where you live. Some places just don’t have the right kind of weather year round.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#215

Post by ninjaz »

shmatt wrote: post #191

The fact is. Not every company can be a $12B company. Peloton might be a super successful $1B company, who slowly tries to creep into new areas for growth. And it sounds like Blackwell understand this, and instead of pushing for Peloton to focus internally on its product and get rid of the extra fat, they want a fast sale to a not-really-smart company. So they can at least get some ROI People talk about monthly fees…

They have virtually no experience on their C-suite in managing complex logistics problems. The people they hire from FAANG are mediocre middle managers who then get titles like VP or SVP. They are trying to scale too fast to keep up with their valuation, without a clear vision.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#216

Post by spookthesunset »

wink wrote: post #44
onion2k wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's been a CTO at times in the past, I wish I'd worked with a CEO like that. There are few things worse than having a leadership team who don't trust you to deliver the tech that drives the company's ideas.

I mean I get the sentiment but months? Which kind of company size are we talking? I'm not saying you should talk to your CEO every week, but twice a year sounds really weird to me.

I mean you are both part of the executive team. The CEO is an immediate part of your working group. You probably should be talking almost daily at times.

It would be like the product manager never talking to their team’s engineering manager. The two are tied at the hip—at least in orgs I’ve worked at.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#217

Post by tannedNerd »

dustymcp wrote: post #209
DrBazza wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seemed more like a niche product Yes. The Peloton 'model' reminds me of the gym model, at least in the UK. You always get a bunch of people sign up in 'fat' January for 12 months. They go to the the gym for a few weeks and stop. But continue paying £50pm or whatever for the next 11 months. Peloton feels similar in that people are made to want the shiny thing in the TV adverts, find that they don't have a room wi…

Being a cyclist All my life i never understood those bikes you dont get fresh air or the navigation fun of finding new ways to explore :)

As some who felt the same way but now lives somewhere with snow on the ground this of year it’s nice to still be able to cycle without the freezing cold and ice patches.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#218

Post by spookthesunset »

Salgat wrote: post #162
skywal_l wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Office Space" reference for anyone wondering[0]. Another Mike Judge's gift to us. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo

It's funny, before I starting working as a developer I thought this guy was useless, but now I understand how valuable not having to deal with the customers actually is.

It’s also one of those jobs that is hard to measure the performance of.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#219

Post by lghh »

dustymcp wrote: post #209
DrBazza wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seemed more like a niche product Yes. The Peloton 'model' reminds me of the gym model, at least in the UK. You always get a bunch of people sign up in 'fat' January for 12 months. They go to the the gym for a few weeks and stop. But continue paying £50pm or whatever for the next 11 months. Peloton feels similar in that people are made to want the shiny thing in the TV adverts, find that they don't have a room wi…

Being a cyclist All my life i never understood those bikes you dont get fresh air or the navigation fun of finding new ways to explore :)

My 2-cents on this as someone who owns a Peloton. Riding a bike is great but doing it for 30-60 minutes 5 times a week is a bit hard to do. We do most of our riding while our toddler naps. I certainly can't leave him alone at home to go bike. I don't live somewhere where it's safe to bike during the day, I certainly can't do it when visibility is anything less than stellar. Where I live is mostly flat, I can't get the type of workout riding outside that I can riding inside where I can more granularity control resistance.

This doesn't replace riding outdoors, it gives you a consistent, reproducible, and flexible way to work out on terms that you can more easily control.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#220

Post by parasense »

shmatt wrote: post #191

The fact is. Not every company can be a $12B company. Peloton might be a super successful $1B company, who slowly tries to creep into new areas for growth. And it sounds like Blackwell understand this, and instead of pushing for Peloton to focus internally on its product and get rid of the extra fat, they want a fast sale to a not-really-smart company. So they can at least get some ROI People talk about monthly fees…

> Hiring way too many engineers, FAANG level org size

Ahem... that's now FAAAN (facebook, apple, alphabet, amazon, netflix)

I'm sorry, I hated to write this, and for what it's worth I didn't know what you meant by FAANG... had to look it up only to find the term has fallen from use.

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