Ack…missed this. Feel free to delete my thread or combine here, Chad.
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Interesting to juxtapose the comments on Peloton’s operations and growth from 2 years ago to where they’re at today.
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I guess I am not shocked, but still surprised……I will give Zwift credit for being willing to eat the hardware project. I’m sure the market data showed it was going to be a tough nut to crack given the installed base of competitive product.
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I went ahead and merged yours here, as well as tweaked the topic title above.
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I think one of the more interesting tidbits that I’ve only seen mentioned in the ZwiftInsider article is that Jon Mayfield is returning to the top side of app development. That and other comments give me a ray of hope that Z might actually deliver some new features.
That’s exactly the thing Zwifters want to see. In fact, the #1 complaint from dedicated Zwifters is the slow pace of change/improvements/expansion. The Zwift community loves new roads and features, and we simply haven’t gotten many of those lately.
Is Zwift just telling us what we want to hear, or are they making real changes that will result in increased development of the “core Zwift game experience”? Sources within Zwift tell me that part of this restructuring includes co-founder Jon Mayfield moving out of his R&D basement and back into a lead role in Zwift development. That’s big news, and a sign that they’re serious about making some changes.
It could also be argued that “right-sizing” Zwift staff will lead to a more nimble organization overall. But whether that translates to quicker releases of new features or just quicker releases of new bugs may come down to improved QA testing combined with freshly streamlined processes.
That and maybe taking a real run at handling their focus on racing to implement proper category and rider points to bring them inline with other racing type apps elsewhere. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel as there are numerous good suggestions from some smart Z users, not to mention they can easily review rating systems in things like iRacing to name one of the biggest in that arena.
Sure tough on the employees now seeking new homes, but as a Z user since 2016, I have been one of the many frustrated Level 50 riders that sticks around due to familiarity and ease now more than the actual app development. It’s been stalled for years and added little to nothing for long time users. Will be interesting to see where this all stands in about 6 months and beyond.
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All of this.
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Sunk cost that hinders efforts going forward need to be dropped. I’ve had to ax a couple of multi-million dollar integrations because they no longer provided enough tangible and intangible ROI to justify sustained development. It sucks more when you can’t repurpose staff and have to let them go.
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Yup…the “sunk cost fallacy” can be a killer. Too many companies see product development as a tunnel and not a funnel.
You gotta be willing to kill a project at almost any point, right up until production is gearing up. If the ROI isn’t there, take the loss and move on.
A lot cheaper to pull the plug on something with high probability of failure pre-launch vs. post launch. Especially with tangible products (hardware) with all the costs of tooling, scaling production, building pre-launch inventory, distribution, building out customer and channel support, impact on partners, etc… Amazing how many times you see companies pull the plug a couple of months after launch, or sometimes right after launch (like the recent CNN+ cancellation) cause someone couldn’t make a tough decision.
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OT, but that CNN+ death was a result of ownership change, and resulting direction change in the company after that had already been planned and implemented. It was a twist of fate on the timing that made it’s birth and death so close.
Not relevant to the Zwift hardware aspect here as this was in motion for years, and simply a culmination of many factors that showed it to be more prudent to kill for now vs continue.
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I suppose it’s the skeptic in me but Zwift having their hand forced into “refocusing on software” doesn’t give me any warm and fuzzy feelings that their interests will be in addressing any needs of longtime users or customers in general for anything beyond the next trend to come along catches the eyes of their venture capitalists
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Certainly fair to question the direction and eventual outcome. I have no idea, but am a careful optimist generally speaking. Forced or not, if they have mainly the app to focus on I hope that will lead to changes and improvement.
Knowing Z, they sure could choose to head in some other direction entirely, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if they do that. Time will tell.
I definitely hope it leads to improvement but I can understand why many RGT users are upset with the purchase by Wahoo because of the uncertainty of what the focus will be since there’s a new investor who’s vision be different from the original RGT team.
Zwift is slightly different but not much. The have all this VC money which I doubt comes with a no strings attached approach so customers rightly wonder if their feedback is important to Zwift.
Like you said. Time will tell
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The CEO should be part of this layoff.
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We don’t really know the growth and retention rates of users. I am sure those will be very important numbers for the investors.
But I agree that some very poor decisions have been made over the last years.
The idea that Zwift would be better able to develop, produce and ship hardware based solutions compared to companies that already have core competencies in this area seemed like hubris. Ignoring glaring issues with the software platform also a huge missed opportunity.
I wonder if Zwifts plan to enter the hardware business in some part triggered Wahoo to go into the training software business with the RGT purchase? (perhaps it would have happened anyway?)
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It’s also plausible - perhaps even likely, that the VC’s were never fully onboard with it, but let it play out for a while because the long-term opportunity cost was greater than the short-term costs.
While VC’s often get a bad rap (even rightly so), one thing that separates the good VC’s from the bad ones is knowing when something is a turd, and cutting the loses.
I mean, Zwift’s woes with their hardware efforts aren’t something new. We’re talking a multi-year flight here, and you’ll want to remember that some of those hardware surveys about a year ago weren’t actually Zwift, but VC companies about to invest in Zwift.
Everyone in the industry, unfortunately, knew how this was going to end. The only way it would have ended well for Zwift, would have been for them to launch 2.5-3 years ago - just ahead of the pandemic enough to have things stabilized. To be clear, as I’ve said many times, the concept of vertically integrated hardware is key to solving complex things like this. It’s why Peloton has the millions of subscribers they do (millions more than Zwft and TR combined). Sure, they’ve pivoted more towards apps, but fundamentally the majority of their users are on hardware.
Zwift was trying to solve the easy-button problem. They were just three years late doing so, and arguably without the right resources to really solve it.
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Makes sense. I do hope they do some good things to enhance their app. I always thought the hardware thing for them was a bad idea but I always have the opinion that a company should focus on their core business and with Zwift that’s their app. But I’m not a risk taker so I’d be horrible in business.
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