Thinking about a $2/month price raise

[Power13]

@grwoolf

Sure, it would be cool to have a trainerroad t-shirt, but unless selling shirts creates a quicker release of unstructured ride support, then I’ll pass on the shirt.

But it isn’t the engineers who would be working on a merch program, it would be the marketing department. No program development would get delayed.

[Jolyzara]

@grwoolf

@Jolyzara

Takes about a hour to set something like this up.

@Pbase

There is absolutely no reason it should take more than a few hours of employee time.

If I had a dollar for every time someone brought me an idea that would only burn a few hours of time…

It’s always a time suck doing stuff like this. TR probably wouldn’t want to give carte blanche to a 3rd party when it comes to their brand. Some level of review on artwork, products being offered, etc. is normally manage by someone in marketing. And when they screw stuff up and it affects customers do you think TR is completely out of that loop? Contractors/vendors can be great for non-core work, but they still have to be managed. It’s likely not a big effort, but it’s still a distraction if it’s not supporting strategic goals.

And yeah, I understand that shirts/swag has been outsourced for years but it’s about organizational focus. Small non-strategic stuff adds up and becomes a drain.

As for whether shirts and hats move the needle for TR as a company, I’d defer to them to make that call. Having TR athletes walking around at events seems like a good idea to me, but I personally know very little about how to build a subscriber base in TR’s space. I assume they have some experienced people making these decisions and have prioritized things like the podcast and online content to build the brand. Resources at all companies are limited. Should someone who is focused on the podcast be bothered by the t-shirt stuff?

I get your point, and yes, if you do it all yourself it is not worth the time. But I’ve done this for years with our team…. it is as easy as an email and sending over logos you already have. And it would be as easy as a pinning a link to the online store on top of the message board. (That said, I don’t think there’s a huge market for it but could be wrong… thus not worth the hassle).

From a marketing perspective, something that would be worth the hassle is TR sponsored race shirts for local NICA teams. At least around here (Northern California) there are thousands of riders and super involved parents at every race. It is crazy how many kids are out riding on sworks and top of the line bikes that I still can’t afford. There’s your next generation of subscribers.

[Mikewpg1ca]

Go for it. Totally understand, as we all know the cost of everything (labour, supplies, etc) has gone up.

[DomCon]

@Power13

Just my $.02…

Er, $.03, surely…

[jmvcolorado]

100% agree with you. TrainerRoad really lost its luster for me with the departure of key staff. The podcast got very boring and dry after that and I stopped listening to it a year ago. The technology promise of TrainerRoad and the absolutely KEY feature of being able to take unstructured rides into account with Adaptive Training and Progression Levels. RLGL is fine, but it’s not THAT useful, especially after having been training for many years. I stopped doing TrainerRoad workouts within the app and so all my PLs fell to 0, making the feature completely useless. That functionality has been promised for so many years now that it’s vaporware, which makes me sad.

I was on an annual plan, and have been a subscriber for many years, but I canceled my membership a couple months ago. I’m riding out the remainder of my annual membership, but at this point, the cancellation seems permanent for me.

[mtbjones]

They’ve said multiple time the marketing department is Jonathan. He’s got enough going on with the podcast and social media.

While the idea of TR merch sounds great, I think Nate wants TR to be a premium brand. That would mean any merch would need to be an expensive, premium product. If I were him, I would not want to deal with all the complaints about pricing or quality when it’s not aero enough, a thread comes undone, weird fit, or other issue. Yes, that should be handled by the 3rd party but people will complain.

[Pbase]

I totally agree and think this is the real reason. It’s not that it’s not easy to get a merch company to produce coffee mugs, tshirts, key chains, stickers, coozies, simple jerseys, etc. It’s that they don’t want to do that kind of merch. Anyone saying it’s difficult to get the simple things I listed above has never done it. It’s REALLY easy. The high end high quality stuff is a whole different ball game, and yes, that stuff is also hard to sell.

[G650]

@mtbjones

While the idea of TR merch sounds great, I think Nate wants TR to be a premium brand. T

I’m not sure how you square that with their offering and price point.

[Nate_Pearson]

@Hampstenfan

My timing question was when we might anticipate the “almost done” project adding the impact of additional sports/activity types on RLGL. Right now I don’t see any early access opportunities on my career page, but don’t know how you determine to whom you offer that; one assumption could be that TR isn’t that far along in the development/testing phases.

More specifically on timing: would you anticipate we see add’l impacts for RLGL before we see RLGL in Plan Builder, after RLGL in PB but before WLV2 on TR workouts, after WLV2 on outside workouts, or after WLV2 on outside workouts? Or might it be implemented in conjunction with one of those additive features? That’s what I was trying to understand in my previous post.

We’re trying for Wednesday for early access, but there could be some last minute bugs that push it out a week or two.

[Nate_Pearson]

@berto2cj

That’s wild - ever think of partnering up?

We did use partners

[mtbjones]

Regardless of it squaring or not, the key word is “wants”. Whether it is a premium brand or not is all in the eye of the beholder.

[G650]

Sure, my question though is how you would get that sense for something that is marketed as a budget option for training.

It wasn’t a derogatory statement at all, so I don’t want that to get confused. TR has always been a mass market product, that was always the point of it.

[Nate_Pearson]

@Pbase

Has your recent experience been that customer service is better than it was a few years ago? I definitely have seen a drop off there. To the point where I stopped going to them for help because I could get a faster and more accurate answer here. Maybe that’s changed in the last few months?

We looked it up, and the last time you contacted us for support was Feb 2023.

Looks like you had an issue with the app telling you there were adaptations to review, but when you went to review it there were zero there.

We got back to you 26 hours later, and then you saw that the adaptations were there, and you were just reporting a bug.

Can you direct me to the recent bad support experience you’ve had?

[mtbjones]

That depends on how you define competition and the market. To oversimplify, apps (TR, Zwift, Join, etc) and live coaches. Are those a single market or different markets? The online market gets quite muddied which is another conversation (is it coaching, training or a game?)

Relative to the cycling apps, TR could be a considered a premium product. Relative to a live coach, it depends on the coach; some are great and some are not.

[OreoCookie]

@mtbjones

That depends on how you define competition and the market. To oversimplify, apps (TR, Zwift, Join, etc) and live coaches. Are those a single market or different markets? The online market gets quite muddied which is another conversation (is it coaching, training or a game?)

The most popular options, Zwift and Peloton, are in the same ballpark. (Zwift costs 19,99 €/month in Germany and Peloton pricing seems to be $13/month or $24/month.) Other apps are likely a rounding error.

For serious athletes, I’d also include Fascat Coaching with its CoachCat chatbot. That seems to be a very interesting, different take on “computer-based coaching” compared to TR.

Coaching by actual humans is much more expensive, and the market much smaller. I couldn’t afford a coach.

@mtbjones

Relative to the cycling apps, TR could be a considered a premium product. Relative to a live coach, it depends on the coach; some are great and some are not.

At least price-wise, coaching (by a human) will always be much more expensive. I’d say TR is a premium product in the app/computer-based coaching category, on par with other non-budget options (Zwift, Peloton, etc.).

[Pbase]

Yep. That’s the last one I remember too . It’s been long enough that I no longer remember the details other than that 26 hours is a long time to wait when you’re concerned about your training plan being messed up. That stuff used to take an hour or two to get a response. Either that or I just got lucky in the past, but I remember lots of people used to talk about how awesome and fast support was back then. I wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t for the post I replied to saying support is only getting better, which wasn’t my personal experience.

[G650]

@mtbjones

That depends on how you define competition and the market. To oversimplify, apps (TR, Zwift, Join, etc) and live coaches. Are those a single market or different markets? The online market gets quite muddied which is another conversation (is it coaching, training or a game?)

@OreoCookie

At least price-wise, coaching (by a human) will always be much more expensive. I’d say TR is a premium product in the app/computer-based coaching category, on par with other non-budget options (Zwift, Peloton, etc.).

I mean, it’s fairly easy to define, it’s done by purpose, not the medium. The market is cycling training. You could certainly say cycling training apps are a submarket and look at relative value there, but cycling coaching goes from apps like Join and TR through top level elite coaches.

Defining any app as premium is like saying a luxury economy car, it doesn’t make any sense.

[mtbjones]

@G650

I mean, it’s fairly easy to define, it’s done by purpose, not the medium. The market is cycling training. You could certainly say cycling training apps are a submarket and look at relative value there, but cycling coaching goes from apps like Join and TR through top level elite coaches.

If that is how you want to define the market, great. It might not be how TR defines the market. There are many different users out there looking for different experiences which leads to different products and perceptions of those products in the market. Some people don’t want/need a coach, they just want to get faster in an efficient manner. Others want a game to ride around a virtual world. Others might not care about getting faster and just want to be fit. Some people just enjoy working out.

@G650

Defining any app as premium is like saying a luxury economy car, it doesn’t make any sense.

Even in the economy car market there is stratification. Some people think there are “good” economy cars and “bad” economy cars. Those subjective ratings are, again, in the eye of the beholder and it’s relative to some other product. Not be pedantic, but what is the definition of the economy car market? It will vary based on the person.

[G650]

@mtbjones

There are many different users out there looking for different experiences which leads to different products and perceptions of those products in the market. Some people don’t want/need a coach, they just want to get faster in an efficient manner. Others want a game to ride around a virtual world. Others might not care about getting faster and just want to be fit. Some people just enjoy working out.

I don’t disagree with any of that. But it has nothing to do with the point.

@mtbjones

Some people think there are “good” economy cars and “bad” economy cars.

Of course there are good and bad ones. Just like good and bad training services.

[mtbjones]

@G650

I don’t disagree with any of that. But it has nothing to do with the point.

I believe it’s very relevant. Each person defines their own perception of a premium product and where it sits in the market. That perception of premium or not is based on what they value and want out of a product.

I gotta get to work. Thanks for the discussion!