May 13th, 2024: The Fall and Fall of Peloton, Forrester's Wave Report, and Digital Evolution

It’s May 13, 2024  and this is the Watson Weekly - your essential eCommerce Digest!

Today on our show:

• The Fall and Fall of Peloton

• Forrester’s New Wave Report

• What’s On My Mind About Digital Evolution

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BUT FIRST in our shopping cart full of news….

You aren’t going to hear the normal episode today.   I just wanted to speak directly to you.

First, I wanted to thank you for supporting me.  When I started this journey, I wasn’t sure anyone would want to listen to at all.  What I would have to say, and if you like this podcast and get value from it, feel free to drop me a note with the reason why at rick@rmwcommerce.com.  I would love to hear from you.

There are three items this week that I thought would be interesting to talk about.

First, Peloton’s CEO Barry McCarthy is out, and the company is doing another 15% layoffs.  This is a sad story.  I give the founder of Peloton CEO John Foley a ton of credit.

It is extremely difficult to create a brand.  It’s even more difficult to create a brand that is so loved.

He did that hardest thing you can do in business.

Start a hardware business and a content business at the same time, and in particular a vertically integrated one.

People think Peloton should just be in content and that would be a great business are kidding themselves.  The connected fitness aspect was the vision.  Connected content is not a vision, that is a hallucination.  And there is already a solution there called YouTube and TikTok that no one has a business competing with.

A MasterClass app for fitness is also not an interesting business.

John Foley met with hundreds of investors and was denied.  The guy then started a Kickstarter to fund the first bikes.

That is passion, and best wishes to John Foley on his new venture.  Which, I have no idea why he started a rug company but knowing John he is attacking it with every fiber of his being.

Second, a new Forrester report came out.  In the B2C sector, there is no leader.

Just think about that for the moment.  Forrester has declared there is no market leader.

The rationale for this is that none of the individual function provided by the platforms outpaced the application partners for that same function.

Is that really the standard?  What is the point of that?

I think when we are evaluating platforms we really need to get back to basics about why as vendors we spend money on analyst reports.  We spend money because we think they will help buyers.

If your vision for the market and how a buyer makes decision doesn’t align with the particular analyst writing the report.

Gartner is Gartner.  It’s not doing much better than Forrester at the moment.  At least they picked some winners even if their methodology doesn’t make any sense.

It’s easy for me to bash analysts, and I’ve taken a couple of shots.  I wanted to give you some perspective that I am not against analysts per se.  I am, however, against methodologies that make no sense and that do not truly serve the needs of buyers.

I heard from one of the AR people at one of the top platforms out there who reminded me, some buyers are using these reports.  That’s the problem I think.  We need to do better.

On the positive side, I do want to give props to one person.  That person is Heather Hershey at IDC.

Her reports are unique, thorough and differentiated.  Probably the best I see in the industry at this time.  

Finally, I want to talk about evolution.  I wanted to provide you an update on RMW Commerce and what we are doing here.

Primarily, we are advisors.  We help provide an outside perspective for vendors and merchants on their businesses.  That outside perspective is designed to be a trusted sounding board as companies navigate difficult decisions.

It’s a market where a lot of difficult decisions need to be made.  In essence, I find companies in two modes.

Mode one is survival mode.  This mode is a week to week existence.  In the worst case scenario, you have stopped paying bills, you have built a 13 week cash flow, and you are living hand to mouth.  

Transformation is impossible.

In this mode, you have one big bet to make.  Make it count.

Mode two is transformation.  You need to change, but you have time to experiment, learn, and find your company’s next act.  That next act includes a few new things.

First you could change your pricing model.  Conceptually this is simple, but in actuality it’s difficult.  Your customers could revolt.

Another type of transformation is to sell new products to your current customers.  If you are in a growing market segment and have an opportunity gain share of wallet, this is the easiest way to expand.  Examples of this include upsells and cross-sells.

You could also sell your existing products to new customers.  In this case, you may need to learn a new goto-market motion.  New customers have different behaviors and motivations.  Examples of this include moving into a more lucrative segment than your current one.  It’s harder than it seems and could take months or years depending on how much you know about this new market.

The hardest type of transformation is to sell new products to new customers.  In this case, you are essentially starting a new business, but sometimes it’s not easy to admit that to yourself. 

Most of the companies that RMW Commerce is working with right now is it one of these buckets.  They are either narrowly focused on survival, or are actively focused on reinventing their business in some way.

If you find yourself needing help in the Commerce space with some of these challenges, we are always happy to listen and provide advice, even if you never become a customer of RMW Commerce.  Reach out on LinkedIn, send me a text, whatever works for you.

Also, if you haven’t heard, we have a new podcast, and if you are listening on audio, it’s called the Watson Weekend.  Just search for it and subscribe.  Trust me, if you like this podcast, the Watson Weekend is even better.

There is even another idea for a show we are going to launch later this year as well.

Again, thank you for listening, and hope you have a great start to your week.

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That’s all for this week! Till next time Watsonians.....

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Hi, I’m Rick Watson, CEO and Founder of RMW Commerce Consulting and host of the Watson Weekly podcast - your essential eCommerce Digest.  

Our production partner for the series is CitizenRacecar. The show is produced by Jose Baez; Production Manager, Gabriela Montequin.

To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.