I rode the Epic KOM Bypass yesterday. As luck would have it, it turned to night w/rain. I couldn’t see 
. No gorgeous scenic views for me.
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This thread has provided some serious entertainment. As much as everyone here has their gripes and frustrations with Zwift, I suspect the average TrainerRoad user is not a part of Zwift’s primary audience.
The fall of Zwift is all but guaranteed based on many comments above, yet no virtual cycling platform has as of yet managed to have a captive audience. With the COVID lockdown, there has never been a better opportunity for a newcomer to come in and take over with an alternative, yet Zwift remains by far the most popular platform, and is still growing. Thousands of riders at any given time, tens of thousands during peak hours, multiple events and races that regularly have several hundred participants, special events with over a thousand participants, UCI sanctioned races, and many people here paying for a product they “despise” so much all speak volumes about the product and service Zwift provides.
I have no knowledge of their code base, development practices and velocity, releases, business model, company culture, etc. so I can’t speculate whether it is too difficult or impractical for them to implement some features people ask for, whether the value is not there, or whether they just don’t care. But clearly they are doing something right so far. Their continued growth and popularity is not a coincidence, an accident, or an act of negligence. As an outsider, I see the company growing their offering and consumer base, which offers hints they’re doing something right, at least for now.
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Hope you try it again. I did it over the weekend and thought it was well done. Although 3km of new road isn’t exactly revolutionary.
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Well, they just closed a $450M funding round, so yeah, something is definitely right
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The fall of Computrainer (and Racermate) was not seen coming by anyone, and no reliable smart trainer platform had as of then yet managed to have a captive audience.
Then came Wahoo and Zwift…poof. Gone.
Zwift has a massive advantage over their competitors…the problem is their advantage is not proprietary. Their advantage is their user base, not their platform. No one wants to ride virtually by themselves…but when your competitive advantage is not proprietary, you are always vulnerable.
I’m not saying Zwift is going to fail or lose their #1 spot in the market…but if they don’t also look after their core costumers instead of focusing on new users, there is a definite risk of losing their advantage.
Bingo. Then again most of the zwift competitors out there for social indoor riding are, just a joke, so there’s not really anything to lose any considerable amount of users to
Agreed…at least for now. I haven’t tried Rouvy, RGT or any of the other platforms simply because, based on what I have heard, there aren’t a lot of users.
Even though the majority of time I am riding solo on Zwift (running concurrently w/ TR), having other people “aorund me” is visually distracting and entertaining, so I stick with Zwift.
The key is a competitor doesn’t need to have more users than Zwift, just enough to ensure that there are other people to ride with. What that user base number is, however, I have no idea.
I will add another advantage Zwift has…they have been able to grow their platform somewhat organically. They were the only game in town and were able to start small and have added on maps, routes and features as needed. A competitor must come into the market with a fairly advanced program to grab users attention.
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For the time being though, focusing on getting those new users in the door has to be the bigger priority, those are new dollars and increases the revenue, where as maintaining the base doesn’t ‘grow’ the revenue. Until there is a competitor for Zwift, I think their approach is an appropriate business decision. Me personally, I use Zwift as a distraction, I could care less about the racing aspect so for my dollars, I would rather them add 4km of new roads rather than try and solve the issue of fairness in eRacing.
Do NOT equate convincing a team of VC folks that you can turn your cycling app into a gym app for the masses into any suggestion they are doing anything right. Whatever dream they sold to get that funding, it was not good for us. If every single cyclist in the world signed up they would still not come close to producing the return those VCs expect on that money. Whatever bs they pitched it involves something that can generate billions and that requires selling to a MUCH larger market. Going to the gym and popping your credit card into a Precor By Zwift™ so you can get 20 more points in on your InstaThinNow plan? Way more likely.
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I don’t disagree necessarily…but they aren’t mutually exclusive, either. You can do both…and that doesn’t even mean you have to prioritize them equally.
For years, we have heard Min talk about a lack of resources and explosive growth being limiting factors. Fair enough…but they have the resources now (capital) if not not the actual human resources. And this isn’t their first round of investor financing either.
My guess is that you will hear the same excuses in this years “Minterview” as last year, with the added reasoning of COVID-driven growth. At some point, however, you just need to address the concerns of your core customers.
I know what you meant, that they grew the user base over time, but it was very much not organic. What TR has done is organic (eat your own profit to fund growth). What zwift has done is the textbook of not organic. From More On Zwift’s $450 Million Series C Funding (Part 1) | Zwift Insider :
Zwift’s funding began with an initial $7 million friends and family round, which was followed by a $10 million angel round and a $27 million first major funding round. December 2018 saw a $120 million series B, then Wednesday’s announcement was a $450 million series C.
That brings total funding to $614 million, although it’s quite possible that additional investment has been made – some reports are stating $620 million total investment.
Half a billion plus. They answer to the money, not the users. I wish they were organic, we would have a great racing platform now. In an organic company the users call the shots cause they ARE the money. @Nate_Pearson may steer the ship around here but all of us are the ones that really make the decisions by how we use it and if we keep paying. A big shift in that and I am certain whatever was making the users unhappy would be fixed nearly instantly.
Tell you what, give me a few hundred million and half a decade and I can promise you something an awful lot nicer…
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You seem to be quite convinced the average Zwift user is an avid eRacer, and the desired Zwift platform is one with first class racing support. I of course don’t know better, but I would be willing to bet quite the opposite - the average Zwift racer quite likely doesn’t care enough about racing and is perfectly content with the existing event structure. And the average Zwift user doesn’t care about racing at all, and is happy either to ride unstructured, or join one of many organized events (official or otherwise). Evidence can be found in numbers - how many distinct users just ride vs how many race? At any point in time, there is a few thousand riders active, while usually only a dozen of those are actually racing.
Even looking at my local riding community, the number of people racing is tiny compared to how many people ride for fun, with groups, and even train. Some people just don’t care for the competitive aspect of the sport, and are out to have fun.
There is definitely a desire for improvement in the platform, or else ZwiftPower wouldn’t exist. I just don’t think so far it has been important enough to their business model, and I doubt they could have capitalized on their investment. Features like ZwiftPower can easily require a seven figure investment by Zwift, so they must balance that with the potential for return.
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Indeed, Eric Min at Zwift has mentioned on numerous occasions, that racing participants are a really small piece of the Zwift Pie. My memory is fuzzy, but it was something like 10% or less IIRC. That was his prior justification for staying clear of racing for years, and leaving it to the community. They only changed their tune in actual supporting and promoting racing after seeing potential $$$$ from the push to getting pro riders involved.
No idea what the current distribution is, but I would agree that it is likely a minority of Z users.
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Fwiw, I dont think we disagree much. I am just avoiding the work i am supposed to be doing 
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I dont think the average zwifter is an eracer. I do think they have a bike, bothered with a trainer, often a power meter. The power meter alone puts them in some small percent of people. A cheap power meter is more than 99% of normal folks bikes. So is a cheap trainer. Their baseline user is into this stuff at least a bit.
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My gripes here are not about the quality of racing but the larger product itself. (dont get me wrong the racing has IsssssssssssUes!). Its about inability to communicate, find events, plan for the future. Do most people race? i suppose not. Do lots of people want some fondo style event 3 months in the future they can work for and plan around and ride with friends? Hell yes. Is this really really easy to make happen? Hell yes. Have they bothered, nOOpe.
This is the one that gets me:
Features like ZwiftPower can easily require a seven figure investment by Zwift, so they must balance that with the potential for return.
First off, a 7 figure investment would be 0.85% of their capital. But thats not my thing. We implement enterprise grade ecommerce sites for major brands for low 7 figures with a dozen people per team in less than a year. Any company who gave a shit would be massively embarrassed by zwiftpower. Look at what can be done by 1 guy, less than full time (intervals.icu) then look at zwiftpower. You can hire GREAT software engineers for well under 100,000/yr. Do you have any idea what even 3 quality engineers can produce in a year full time?
They put on the TdF for fucks sakes, show some pride in your product and spent a buck!
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No idea what the current distribution is, but I would agree that it is likely a minority of Z users.
Is that a cause or an effect though? How many would sign up for stuff if it was reasonable?
- Can you expand on this? What do you mean by “reasonable”?
I think most cyclists out there just want to have fun and stay fit and social. Zwift does a better job at that than any other platform, and their user base proves that. Id bet the percentage of people who actually train and race out of the entire cycling population is single digits, but it’s easy to get trapped in this mental bubble thinking “the platform doesn’t appeal to me hence it sucks”.
For me, the new routes are more of a perk than being able to start a new ride without exiting the app, or race filtering, because I have zero interest in internet racing (and I think I’m more in line with the vast majority of zwift users here). Quite frankly I think the people who constantly moan about the above would find anything to complain about because going against the grain of the majority is just their thing
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Yeah, “organic” may not have been the right term financially, but from a product perspective, I think it fits. The original Zwift was just Jarvis island and was pretty bare bones. It has obviously expanded significantly since then to meet the demands of the marketplace.
A serious competitor will not have the opportunity for such “growing pains”…they need to hit the market with a very dialed-in platform, ready to meet the needs of the market on Day One.
My personal playbook for anyone who wants to take on Zwift and win:
- Game “session” where players of different fitness levels can race together and still have fun/choice autonomy (i.e. I’m the sprinter role so I have to produce a minimum watt which keeps me with team so your slow buddy with huge watts can still race with you)
- Good matchmaking
- Being free-to-play instead of subscription
- Offering plenty of paid cosmetic unlocks that aren’t linked to endemic brands
- 1-2 week release cycle
- Ignore training plans
- Ignore outside federation legitimacy
- Game mechanics that include more tactical strategy (choice first, teamwork second, fitness third). Basically if there is a large enough incentive to modify watts or weight, then the game mechanics are not well designed enough
- One map like Watopia, but just expanded constantly
Ideally said game would also provide opportunities for all of the Bartle player types:
I’ll also note that you don’t need to raise $600M to do the above. Probably more like $30-50M and you’ll turn a profit much faster than Zwift ever will.
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The whole industry suffers from this…it is dominated by serious cyclists, often racers, and the mentality is that this viewpoint is what the industry as a whole wants.
It has gotten remarkably better over the last 10-15 years (and gravel has been a big factor in that, IMO), but the “top down” mentality still reigns.
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