Zwift raises $450 Million; Specialized joins KKR in the investment round

I have seen a notification when opening Zwift about some new 8-week training program they’ve made available which sounds kinda similar to TR plans. Has anyone actually drilled into this to understand more?

Superb comments re: Zwift and Specialized! TBD as to the extent of relationship re: a Zwift bike, whether to include design/development, manufacturing and service/support. But it has an opportunity to a major win for both.

Specialized also has access to elite/world class athletes and coaches. I wouldn’t be surprised if the partnership includes future expansion to development of structured training.

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Personally I don’t see any value in the training plans. You can buy canned plans anywhere and they are only as good as the marketing hype that sells them.

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I know that feeling…

I love what Zwift has created in the past. But I’m getting more and more upset by their BS communication and false promises by their CEO. A few month ago he announced rowing will be coming in a few weeks… it feels like a long time ago that anti-cheating/sandbagging measurements, more group functions etc. were announced / in beta testing. As of now nothing really materialized. And on top of that, the new UI that was “finished” in March but the release was delayed due to the user spike / Covid. Well, here is the latest update:

I appreciate the communication in that post and answering user questions. But what has a UI to do with increased user numbers and not being scalable? That’s BS. Regarding any future statements of Eric Min I stick to these wise words:

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The other interesting part of this investment is that Zwift now has a direct link with the Today’s Plan training platform (owned by same fund). This training software is already used for their Zwift Academy program.

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I have zero interest in Zwift or what it is doing to the sport - and even if they offered a service like TR for free, I’d still rather pay for TR to get what is uniquely theirs - the community, the staff, the podcast, the blog, this forum, etc.

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Yeah I can’t believe it took so long for someone to point out the obvious Z and S synergies.

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I think Garmin is more likely to buy TR than Zwift ever would.

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We get it…you have made a crapton of money in Peloton stock and think every other platform is a grave threat to TR.

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And therefore TR must add the features Bob wants upgraded

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+1,000

I get news feeds to my Bloomberg terminal and I can post them in new threads all day.

However, it seems to me Nate & Co. are doing a pretty damn good job on their own without our unsolicited advice.

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The reality is that even with companies that have similar products, it doesn’t mean they need to be direct competitors or threats to each other.

As has been argued and presented multiple times, TR and Peloton chase vastly different audiences. This applies to some degree with Zwift, as well…although clearly the competition threat is more direct with them.

But TR is unique in that they are chasing a specific, targeted audience. And they apparently have no outside investors to answer to, which gives them added stability and focus.

The market always needs a premium, niche product…as long as TR keeps evolving and serving the needs of their target audience (which by all accounts they are), they will be just fine.

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I’ll go on record and say that, within 5 years, this is a huge deal. I’ve said before that I would like to see our wrist-based devices give us information in real time to actually positively affect our outcomes (Ie, the device knows that it’s hot, that you’re at an elevation above what you normally train at, your HR is elevated, the amount of training you’ve done recently and at a macro level, the calories you’ve intaken according to your plan, pace, O2 sat, and more, and then says, “hey, you should run/ride at this pace, that’s the best you can do.”

I don’t want to over-represent myself as an expert in this area, because I’m not, but I know enough about machine learning to say that TR has an absolutely incredible data set. ML-based training would be right up their data-wheelhouse, if they can leverage it properly. It’s also a competitive advantage that’s hard for others to simply throw money at; they’ve got years of progressive growth and de-growth on tens (hundreds?) of thousands of athletes. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if they even A/B tested some performance tweaks either at the physiological or compliance level. Wouldn’t shock me at all if that’s where they’re taking it; it’s the future.

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I’d be surprised if they haven’t had at least a few coaches on payroll for years.

Hiring more won’t help them. You know the saying, too many chefs…

TR’s not-so-secret sauce is Chad, Nate, and Jonathan.

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No, not an accurate assessment of my postings of Peloton and Zwift news.

There are several companies in the market that IMO are not [serious] threats to TR, including TrainingPeaks, CTS, Strava, XERT, and many other smaller companies, and even larger ones, including Garmin and Wahoo/Sufferfest. What makes Peloton and Zwift serious threats is that these are companies with major software talent, broad and deep leadership teams that really understand the market(s) they are pursuing, have consistently delivered significant results and as such, have attracted major league funding that provides them with the resources to address these markets, including expansion well beyond their current product portfolios. I am not suggesting that TR is imminent danger for survival, but for TR management to take these companies lightly would not be wise. To quote Andy Grove (legendary Intel CEO) “Only the Paranoid Survive”.

Have you ever actually used Zwift? You know the software for which you have to exit the game and restart it and repair all your devices when you want to change a route? Don’t get me started on bugs…

Regarding the leadership team I’ve already shared my option a few posts above.

I still appreciate what Zwift did and hope they improve and succeed. I just wouldn’t make the mistake to give them a free pass just because they raised a lot of money. Theranos for example also raised a lot of money… And the problem with Venture Capital is - they want to make money - most of the time quickly. This doesn’t have to be aligned with the long term goals of a company.

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Don’t forget to get a nice glass of cold-pressed juice from your Juicero after a hard ride.

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You don’t run a successful small business (<500 people) by focusing on the competition.

You keep them on your radar but focus on yourself and trust your instinct.

There are things that TR needs to do over the next few years to stay on top, none of which include creating choreo spin classes or a gaming interface.

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Haha, had to google that. Love it. I probably missed that product launch because I was so busy at that time fitting all my IQ² pedals to my bikes… :wink:

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true, but you can also end up with the windows phone :smirk: