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This is a pretty typical deck for an activist investor where they cherry pick all kinds of problems from a high growth company and make them look incompetent. I
by spchampion2 5y ago
This is a pretty typical deck for an activist investor where they cherry pick all kinds of problems from a high growth company and make them look incompetent. If Peloton had kept its growth curve, we would all be taking about how amazing John Foley was as a leader in building the Apple of fitness or something.
But it goes without saying that Peloton did not maintain its growth curve, so a reckoning is due. But WHY did it not maintain the curve? You won't really find that answer in this deck.
Instead, the deck has an agenda: convince the shareholders to force the company to sell. Presumably Blackwells bought a lot of shares recently and would see a nice return if someone bought Peloton at a premium of the current price. Heck, their shares are already up just based on the management changes.
So all in all, I'm going to be contrarian and disagree that this is a good deck. It's good for a single agenda, and it's good if you share that agenda. But it's not good if you want to understand how Peloton really got into this mess or how they could have actually avoided it. Those insights would be far more interesting for figuring out whether Peloton has a future alone or should sell.
- toss1 5y agoAgree - just a skim shows that this is a pitch to sell, and fast. The deck also overstates and overlooks huge issues. What stuck out first is the claim that there is a lot of IP. While I'm sure they have a lot of patents and copyrights and I haven't read the details, I don't see much that is really protect-able. Many patents cover only their particular implementation, and I don't see where the concept of an exercise bike with attached screen/sound showing taped or live media or coaching sessions is protectable. It seems the biggest moat they have is the existing relationships with the stable of instructors - my question is how exclusive and long are those relationships? The other is the fact that their products are locked to show no other content. Many people just want to watch their selected content while exercising, whether news, Netflix, or some other selected video; this is possible with most competitors, but not with Peloton. Considering the deck and those two unmentioned items, I don't see how I'd get Peloton back to some exclusive level, short of signing up every instructor in the country and cornering the market on trainer content (not gonna happen). So, yes, he's desperate to sell, and rightly so.
- nikanj 5y ago> I don't see where the concept of an exercise bike with attached screen/sound showing taped or live media or coaching sessions is protectable Lawyers. The most absurd concepts can get protected, if you have enough VC cash to throw at your legal team
- toss1 5y agoThey definitely can sometimes protect absurd things, but it sure looks like the exercycle with video screen horse has left the barn, gone over the hill, and is running well into the next state... Just DDG or Google ""exercycle with video screen", and dozens come up, with the largest brands, NordicTrak, Schwinn, Echelon, Proform, etc., and there's reviews of "Exercise Bikes With Video Screen Compared" [0]. It's just too broad and obvious a concept at this point. Not that they might not squander piles of money trying, but unlikely to succeed in any meaningful way. [0] https://www.fitrated.com/exercise-bikes/exercise-bikes-with-video-screen/ https://www.fitrated.com/exercise-bikes/exercise-bikes-with-...
- mdoms 5y agoPresumably a lot of the IP would be the instructor videos with very popular almost-celebrity instructors? Or are they always done live?