How I Joined the Peloton Community and Gained Insight Into My Own Business Model

Lessons from Peloton

Now I want to share the lessons I’ve learned from this experience. There are quite a few!  These can relate to your business in regards to the sale and the waiting period.

Lesson number one is to have a strong brand and people will pay. There will always be someone charging less or more than you, but people will pay for the reputation, brand, and experience.

Lesson number two is to use a waiting time between people signing up and when they start your program or service. This will hype them up. See if there’s a way to breadcrumb people to their start to really ramp up their excitement.

The third lesson is that those amazing communities can create FOMO. You know your community is strong when people start stepping up as leaders themselves because they have a passion for what you do. The culture of your community starts with you!

The Delivery Experience

The delivery experience was very easy and straightforward. I received a delivery window on a specific day for my bike to arrive between 8 and 12pm. They arrived at 9am with a courtesy call right before, which I appreciated.

Two people dropped off the bike. They knew a lot about the product and it took them about 20 minutes to set up the bike. These delivery men were so excited for me to have my bike and that was contagious!

Some lessons I learned from this are:

• Deliver as promised and people will be satisfied - meeting people’s expectations makes a difference.
• Make things easy for people - no one wants to waste extra time or energy.

The Ride Itself

This is where the fun comes in! A couple of days after the bike arrived, I started using it. As soon as you log onto the bike, they have a program called Peloton 101. There are quick videos and text that help you learn how to use your bike and how to set it up to match your needs. This was nice - the instructions were clear-cut and simple.

After I got myself set up and felt comfortable, I was ready for my first ride. I took a beginners course and it was obvious that the instructor was very excited to be there. She was animated and engaging. 

I felt uncomfortable during the ride because it was new to me, but the instructor made me want to be there. Now that’s a good experience. Creating an environment like that is SO important.

The instructor was very motivating and she addressed some mindset things that typically sabotage people while using Peloton. It was nice because she showed that she knew who was on the other side of the screen without even meeting me.

Overall, it was a very encouraging experience, especially given the fact that I was somewhat intimidated about the ride in general. I hadn’t worked out in a while and I knew my strength and endurance weren’t at their peak. But the instructor put all my fears to rest quickly.

These are things that you, in your own business, can do for free. Being there for someone and addressing what you already know about them is huge. 

Peloton Gamification

Peloton has a lot of stats on the screen so you can see things like:

• Your cadence
• Your resistance
• Your output
• Your heart rate 
• Your progress
• How one ride compares to your previous rides

It’s really cool that you can not only see your progress but that you can see the different ranges the instructor is telling you to be in so that you can follow along with the class. Outside of that, they have leaderboards with tons of filters for the way you view these things. 

The goal for Peloton is not to make people feel like they’re not good enough. Instead, they’re looking to push their members to do their personal best. I appreciate that it’s emphasized through their experiences that it’s all about meeting your goals.

When you think about gamification, your goal is to create actions that promote the behavior you want to see in the person. For Peloton, they’re using competition as a way to gamify it with the goal in mind that they want their riders to continue getting better.

They’ve been really conscious about this and it’s all very individual, which I love.

Another thing I love about it is that there are different rides that use music to match your tastes - they have theme rides, which is really cool!

Overall, they make it easy to feel like there are options to match the experience to what you actually want.

Another thing that relates to the gamification of Peloton is the use of badges. They give out these for different milestones or achievements - for instance, I received several for my first ride, which was a nice way to feel rewarded. It encourages people to keep going and to try new things.

Peloton also uses challenges to engage their audience. They have curated experiences that help people grow or you can even create your own hashtag to use within the community. 

There are live rides on the platform where you’re taking a class that an instructor is teaching live and the instructor can interact with you. They also have “encore” rides that have been previously recorded but that a group can take at a specific time. Or, they have their on-demand library, where you can choose any previously recorded class whenever you want to meet your schedule and desires.

There are a few lessons I’ve learned from riding with Peloton. First, you should onboard your learners quickly and efficiently. Simplicity is key. This way, confusion doesn’t become a barrier to their success.

Next, set the pace for how you want your learners to feel. If you want them to be excited, exude excitement yourself. Remember that people will match your energy level and ask yourself how you’re showing up.

Address your learners based on where you know they are mentally and from a competency perspective. You want to address people at every level to make them feel included.

Think about what motivates your learner and how you can use that to drive your learners to push themselves outside their comfort zone. What are the motivating things for the people taking my programs? How can I push them to do a little bit more?

Next, reward learners for achieving the baby steps that lead them to their ultimate goal to encourage momentum and progress. It’s not just about rewarding people when they hit their ultimate goals. Make sure to encourage them along the way! Celebrate small wins - everything is a win. Think of ways you can do this to prevent people from giving up.

Think of ways to make things customizable for your learners. This will help them feel like they’re in control and like they can take action in a way that best fits their needs. Are there ways that they can make the experience their own? 

The last lesson is that you should think through how you can bring more fun into your programs and journey. People want something interesting and unique.