branding, business, Entrepreneurship, home gym, marketing, Startups

How Home Workout Solutions Tonal and Peloton Are the Gyms of the Future

Tonal and Peloton are two new home gym alternatives that allow you to bike, run and do other cardio and strength training from the comfort of your own home.

Tonal offers a lot more in terms of being a viable substitute for an actual gym membership (if you lift weights) while Peloton is more cardio-based.

Peloton has a bike or treadmill option complete with interactive workouts featuring instructors from all over the world. They also have some options for strength training, but appear very limited in the range of exercises you can actually perform.

Tonal offers a digital weight system that allows you to tap a screen to add or decrease weight, complete with cables which make it possible for you to perform most exercises.

As a full-service home gym, it should come as no shock that Tonal isn’t cheap. The system goes for $2,995, or you can pay in a series of monthly installments.

Neither company does a great job of explaining what you can and can’t do nor do they go into much detail about their products.

Both are very new startups, and Tonal purchases outside of California require you to make a reservation. It’s not available when the expected delivery is, or how long the waitlist is.

From a quick look at both sites, neither seem totally worth it.

The only one I could see being worth it (after paying off a mountain of bills) would be Tonal.

Peloton is basically a REALLY expensive bike or treadmill. Yes, they have instructors, but you can get that at any gym.

Where Peloton makes up some ground is by allowing you to stream workout classes, however that is not included with any of the bike packages. Peloton’s streaming package is $39 per month.

It sure beats the hell out of your normal gym alternative, but doesn’t do enough to replace your workout (if you do more than ride the bike or run) to justify the hefty price tag ($2,200-2,700).

I guess these are products for the rich, but they’re certainly not marketed that way.

Tonal is more of a product that you could legitimately consider and be able to wrap your head around from an ROI perspective. A $50 monthly gym membership would put you out $600 per year.

So, if Tonal could meet all of your gym needs, you would essentially have a home gym for life while only paying a gym-equivalent fee for five years.

In the wild west of home and virtual gyms, I’d rather wait and see how these things do for a few years before getting tied down with a pricey investment.

Besides, in a world of vastly evolving technology, who knows what will be around in 3-5 years.

Unless you’re rich, I’d keep the gym membership for now.

business, Entrepreneurship, marketing, Startups

My Interview with an MIT Sloan School Alum, and How MIT Changed Everything

Bruce Baron is a successful Boston-area entrepreneur that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a few times while I was a lowly intern. VoiceFriend is located in the Boston area and was designed to allow seniors in various living situations (senior living, skilled nursing, hospice) to be more social as a result of their technology, which reminds and notifies them of events, as well as alerting seniors, staff and families of emergencies. The company was founded in 2006, but Bruce didn’t become involved until later.

What is your company’s mission?  To enable Healthcare providers to improve outcomes at a lower cost.

When and how did you become involved with VoiceFriend?  In 2010 I invested in VoiceFriend.  In 2011, I became the CEO.

Explain the product/services you provide. Web based Solutions for healthcare providers.

What area did your funding come from? (VC, federal grant, research center, etc.) and were any of the following present in funding: gov, philanthropy, anchor institutions (schools, hospitals, etc),  intermediary institutions (NGO’s).  Funding has come from the Founders, an Angel investor and the CEO.

Talk about some of the challenges you’ve faced as well as tradeoffs you’ve had to make in building a startup. Was the accessibility of funding for scale a challenge?  Funding is always a challenge. Not just the capital, but the right capital coming from sources in which you are strategically aligned.  Major challenge is the risk vs. reward.  Salary is much lower than a mature business would offer, but the upside is far greater.

What are opportunities VoiceFriend has had or future opportunities? These can be elements that enabled growth or any other support (financial or otherwise) that have helped you succeed. Can also answer as it relates to you personally (Opportunities you’ve had in life by being an entrepreneur).  My past success in business enabled me to build a nest egg that offered me the opportunity to take on a risk that otherwise I would not be able to do.

How do you define success for VoiceFriend or of how you do business in general?

Revenue growth and client acquisitions are the key metrics we monitor as a measure of success.

Who are the beneficiaries of your success and what does that look like?  Seniors, healthcare providers employees and shareholders are all beneficiaries.

Was there ever a goal in terms of the number of rooms or facilities (senior, hospice, etc.) that you wanted VoiceFriend to be in? Yes, they are all part of our business plan.

I was absolutely blown away by the impact MIT founders have had on Massachusetts’ economy. 6,900 MIT alumni companies with worldwide sales of $164B are located in MA and represent 26% of sales of MA companies. What about your education there prepared you to be an entrepreneur?  Incredible stat!  Tactics and strategy, interactions inside and outside the classroom.