Tesla also wants sports bikes to be the Netflix of fitness

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Peloton, an American company that was founded in 2012 and has been publicly traded since 2019, does two things together. The first is the production and sale of exercise bikes and treadmills that cost thousands of dollars. The second is to offer remote fitness courses by subscription, so that they are deployed: with, but also without, exercise bikes and treadmills. Having achieved great success during the pandemic, Peloton (which is not yet in Italy) has managed to continue to grow and, according to some, become the so-called media company. A company that produces and provides content according to the intentions of its founder John Foley. Maybe Similar to Netflix. Yet it is in a way.

Born in 1971, Foley founded Peloton in his early forties, after studying engineering and then business. After becoming CEO Avoid (It is known as the site where you can send and manage invitations of various kinds) and after leading the department dedicated to online sales at Barnes & Noble, a large American bookstore chain. “Peloton” is a word of French origin, used in cycling parlance, not just French, to refer to a fairly compact group of road riders, where the pedals are used together to provide aerodynamic comfort.

In his early years he devoted himself to equipment: first to the bike and then to the walk, always with high quality products and a very advanced design, with large screens and a lot of efficient technology.

As early as 2018, Foley said he was inspired by Apple, Tesla, and “other vertically integrated software and hardware platforms, to reach consumers directly and revolutionize their markets.” According to him, prior to Peloton, exercise bikes and walking were part of “a class that was so sleepy that you didn’t know how to develop yourself. Sometimes it still happens that you see in front of your screens dots that fill up as you go.” Closer to the end. It’s a facade that’s been around since 1979.”

In the early years of Peloton, Foley spoke of his company with great ambition. He said For example, Peloton did not sell bikes but rather happiness. Or that the mills in their plans should be “gateways to trials.”

Foley Neal 2019 (Foto AP / Mark Lennihan)

Someone made fun of Foley for his comments, which are actually pretty common among companies of this type and these years. In the meantime, the company has grown: in a few years it has expanded its product range and above all dedicated itself to the paid application for receiving training courses, both with its free hardware and architecture. Within a few years, Peloton reached the UK, Canada, Germany, and now Australia.

In September 2019, Peloton was announced, a few months before the start of a pandemic that caused its sales, subscriptions, and shares to grow rapidly and rapidly. A few months ago, analyst Michel Segar He said The financial times: “Even before the pandemic, the Peloton was fine, but after the pandemic it really exploded.” The reason is obvious: the company offered the possibility to stay in good shape from home and at the same time connect and compare yourself with other people: course teachers and other Peloton users. “It’s tough,” he wrote. financial times Write a script more relevant to the success of a company like Peloton.

In recent years, especially during the pandemic, many Peloton coaches (often virtually unknown until recently) have become very popular and some, such as Robin Arzon, Alex Toussaint or Cody Rigsby, are today influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers. in your own way big success.

In recent months, Peloton has encountered a problem Remember some of your products (with significant costs and consequent loss in the value of its stock), but its expansion plans continue. detachment full A series of acquisitions of companies and start-ups of various kinds, from those that produce sports equipment to those that deal with technological devices for wearing, passing through others that deal with artificial intelligence or algorithms to customize training and fitness.

On the one hand, it is obvious and logical that Peloton wants to advance the technology of its products and services and improve what can already be done with the HD screens of its equipment, which exceed 20 inches (in some cases up to 30) and offer different possibilities for interaction with other Peloton users.

On the other hand, and most importantly, Peloton is trying to become an increasingly influential figure. media company: Content and Entertainment Company, Inc.The Hollywood Reporter You get more and more Hollywood. In the words of Jennifer Kotter, director of content at Peloton, a kind of “Netflix for well-being” is called a set of practices to improve, both physically and mentally, in a somewhat pretentious way.

Through your subscriptions the simplest costs $12.99 per monthIn fact, Peloton aims to offer more and more courses, in increasingly diverse activities and in increasingly different ways. To create who met the former employee beforeThe Hollywood Reporter he knows Mini-presentations are increasingly linked to the image of the teacher creating them.

right Now, he wrote aThe Hollywood ReporterPeloton is a “global content brand”, paying close attention to “course setting”, “smart promotion of its teachers” and many increasingly important deals with entertainment companies. “In many ways, Peloton operates like an old-fashioned film studio, because it turns its coaches into stars, but not before bonding them to it in multi-year contracts, and because it produces all of its content itself and also controls its distribution.”

Peloton now produces and offers dozens of new lessons each day, with sponsorship rarely found in other similar services. He wrote these lessonsThe Hollywood ReporterIt was meticulously produced by a group that, according to the company, consists of people who have won 19 Emmys in total. [gli Oscar della tv statunitense]When Arzon, one of the coaches, carried the announcement in detail, so officials would know when and how it was delivered during one of her lessons, some of which were simultaneously followed by more than 20,000 people.

And now Peloton is producing content on Instagram or YouTube that isn’t lessons or related to fitness and wellness, with cycling, running, walking, yoga, stretching, aerobics or meditation. Arzon, for example, dedicated one to her pregnancy story.

In addition, there is a growing demand for faction courses. For example, there is some music, where you practice listening to music by a specific artist: which means that the Peloton makes specific agreements, as he did with Beyoncé, or that he guarantees rights, as he did with the Beatles.

Peloton’s future growth will certainly move from better tools and better apps with more services and features (for example, similar to Strava, it allows you to track activities and outdoor sports performance and compare it with other users).

But also and above all to create a greater sense of community than I published in an article a few months ago He. She he knows Peloton’s digital universe “Beloverse” about which he wrote, “is an integral part of the identity of the company, a lifeline to many, the secret ingredient that separates Peloton from the competition.” “Peloton has really gotten into certain individual lifestyles,” said Gina Jacobson, professor of retail management. But it’s collectively made possible by technology: “Don’t ride alone” was Peloton’s motto in 2013.

To accommodate this continuity – that someone, in certain situations, Almost like worship – Peloton is thinking too to fix (You can now, that users have already organized them themselves in the past) Non-digital events and festivals and collection times.

Meanwhile, Peloton has grown to about 3,000 employees, about 100 “showrooms” in the countries in which it is located (testing its products, rather than selling them directly) and in 2020 generated nearly $1.8 billion in revenue. dollars, and for many years problems with so many orders that I couldn’t keep them (now you’re talking about shipping usually within two weeks).

Peloton currently has more than $30 billion in capital and more than three million subscribers. They include Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, Shonda Rhimes, and even Joe Biden, the company’s stationary bike owner. He said to explain to his readers what that bike was like before Biden moved to the White House. Los New York Times sChris: “For starters, it’s part exercise bike and part social media.”