April 14, 2021

Why expensive workout gear is actually cheap

20 minutes

For this week's deep dive Natasha and Alex wanted to dig into the Tonal EC-1, a huge document spread across a number of posts. Our goals were pretty simple: To better understand Tonal's journey, and also to get into the mind of its author.

So we corralled JP Mangalindan into firing up his computer, microphone, and recording software for a chat. Here's what we covered:

What is Tonal, why is it interesting, and why did JP spend so much time learning about the company?

What did he have to leave out of the final report?

His views on fitness gear, and the Peloton effect more broadly

What was it like to write something so gosh darn long?

The Tonal EC-1 comprises four main articles representing about 10,600 words and a reading time of about 43 minutes:

How a homegrown experiment became one of the fastest-growing companies in fitness tech

Millions of dollars and 3.5 years, and it all came down to this

Building online communities for fun, profit and product

Can Tonal become the luxury fitness market champion?

As Natasha is currently -- shh, it's a secret -- working on an EC-1 of her own, we had more than a usual amount of interest in the project. Use code Equity for a super sweet discount to access this story and all of our premium content.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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