Peloton's Flat Tire

" Positioning the company for a sale and charting a new path forward, Blackwells said Peloton should focus on fitness-as-a-service, or FaaS, by: focusing on softwareoutsourcing manufacturingcreating an open ecosystempartnering with equipment makers"

Speaking of Peloton, let’s not forget that they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on production studios, music licenses, and instructor talent to create a premium experience. So, when they heavily discount their app, making it free for 90-days, it’s hard to imagine fitness-seekers won’t defect from their local studios.

"Peloton’s quest to become the Apple of fitness hamstrung the brand. Forgoing vertical integration, new content/software/hardware bundles are emerging. Whether Peloton pursues FaaS or not, open ecosystems will continue to gain traction."

Cars and the FutureA little over a year ago I explained in Cars and the Future that there were three changes happening in the personal transportation industry simultaneously:Drivetrains were changing from the internal combustion engine to electricCar operation was moving from human-based to computer-based (i.e. self-driving cars)Ownership was shift... See more

In a crowded software market, hardware can be your moat. The most successful of these companies is Peloton. If you buy a bike (or presumably a Tread), to just get your hardware to turn on, you have to pay Peloton $39 a month for a subscription. And while your parents’ generation ended up using exercise equipment mainly as a clothes horse, these new... See more

The last decade showed that questionable business models can subsist for a long time (and even flourish) when capital is abundant. Thirteen years after its founding, Uber is still figuring out how to be profitable: the company’s gross margins actually declined seven percentage points over the past three years, and the net profit margin is -3%.