👉 Background: Peloton is the premium internet-connected bike that launched back in 2013 on a Kickstarter campaign. And these slick looking bikes took the world by storm during pandemic lockdowns.

👉 What happened: At its peak, Peloton had over 8,500 employees. But the post-pandemic world has not been a fun place for Peloton. Its retail operations lost more than $100 million last year.

👉 What else: Peloton's CEO has warned that the company has until April 2023 to turn things around…or else 💀. Now, Peloton announced its fourth round of job cuts — with 500 jobs cut and a substantial number of its 86 retail stores in North America shutting down.

What's the key learning?

💡The trend is not always your friend. Peloton is one of several companies to bet too big on the pandemic trend. In other words, they assumed that the good times would just continue to roll.

💡 The truth is, the momentum for Peloton slowed to a halt almost immediately after lockdowns were lifted, gyms reopened and we could leave the house.

💡But Peloton ain't the only ones to suffer from doubling down on the pandemic trend:

• Shopify, the e-commerce company, cut staff this year after it misjudged e-commerce trends and expanded too rapidly
• FedEx, the transport company, announced that they will be closing locations, as well as cutting costs and worker hours because they overestimated how long demand would last.

‍