Technology has made it so that if you're sick, you don't have to go to a physician's office to get care. Why should you have to go to the gym to take your favorite workout class?
That's what John Foley thought when he came up with the idea for Peloton. After recently becoming a father and realizing he no longer had time for his usual workouts, Mr. Foley noticed that when he did have time to hit the gym, classes were full or offered at inopportune times. At-home workout equipment just didn't cut it. Mr. Foley found it clunky and lacking in the sole aspect people wanted: a sense of community.
"What the consumer wants, what is making people addicted to these classes, whether it's yoga or boot camp or spin or high-intensity interval training or whatever, is the group environment," said Mr. Foley, now Peloton's CEO, to the The New York Times. "It's the other people. It's the instructor. It's the music. It's the motivation."
In 2012, Mr. Foley and three others — Tom Cortese, Yony Feng and Graham Stanton — co-founded Peloton, a New York City-based company that allows anyone to take a spin class from the comfort of their own home. To take a class, users have to purchase a Peloton bike and tablet, which cost around $2,000, at one of the company's 17 retail locations. They then pay $39 per month for unlimited classes.
While the price tag may seem hefty, the average gym member spends $101 each month on classes, according to data from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association. And one class at a boutique workout studio — such as SoulCycle — costs approximately $30, making the Peloton price worth it after the initial bike investment.
Since 2013, Peloton has sold 50,000 bikes and produced more than 3,000 workout videos. Any given class may contain 50 in-person bikers more than 200 at-home riders.
The teleworkout trend is catching on. Market research firm Mintel found 15 percent of regular exercisers have paid for fitness video subscriptions, and 16 percent are interested in buying one.
Other organizations are taking note, too. Companies such as Physique 57, Daily Burn and FitFusion are offering virtual workout classes.
Physique 57 Cofounder and CEO Jennifer Vaughan Maanavi predicts the teleworkout movement will only continue to grow. "Relying only on brick-and-mortar locations will take too long," she said, according to the Times. "We have so many people doing on demand who don't live anywhere near a gym, let alone a boutique fitness studio."