user research<\/a>. When they start putting prototypes in the hands of users they focus heavily on the extreme ends of the curve of potential users. They theory is that if the users on the margins are delighted by the product the “rank and file” customers will also like it. One example from Ideo is the OXO line of kitchen tools which were revolutionary in terms of ergonomics. There margin users were elderly people, children, and people with disabilities. If they can use the product average adults can most certainly use them. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat this would look like in Peloton’s world would have been to work with those with almost no experience with exercise equipment and highly committed cyclists. It’s that second one I think they may have missed, or at least didn’t pay enough attention to. In fact I would imagine they spent most of their time in the middle part of the curve because it’s the easiest and makes for good presentations on research findings because there are simply more people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What would they have learned if they talked to very experienced cyclists? They would have learned that riding on a stationary bike will get old quick. Even with the best equipment, content, apps, plans, reminders, and all the sex appeal. Even if you are a highly motivated professional, who needs to be in elite shape by spending hours on hours on a stationary bike in the winter, you will get to the point where you will burn out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even a contender for the Tour De France will eventually hang laundry on their Peloton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m sure I’m mostly wrong – Peloton is a great company with incredibly intelligent product and marketing people and by all normal measures they are a very successful company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is imperative that you consider the margins of your users and not simply right them off as another “corner case”. You can learn a lot from the unlikely. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like a lot of people, when the pandemic kicked off, I picked up a few home fitness stocks expecting some short term gains. Those who held PTON to around December of 2020 saw around a 5x gain. I wish I bought more. I dipped out right around the time the vaccine started to hit the… Read More »The Collapse Of Peloton: Market Research Failure?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,13],"tags":[25,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincemarotte.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}