Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio. Well,
Speaker 1: Carol knows this. I do ride bikes a lot. You
Speaker 1: do less than I used to, as much as I can, though,
Speaker 1: and I'm a big swifter. It's well known among cyclists
Speaker 1: as a way to train or compete when it's too
Speaker 1: cold or ready to go ride your bike outside, or
Speaker 1: you want to get a quick workout.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: It's like the majority of cycling that I do now
Speaker 1: is on swift, Is it really? Yeah, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: much easier for me to get a good workout. It
Speaker 1: too sometimes it is. It is you're just trying not
Speaker 1: to fall off, which is very easy to do, you know,
Speaker 1: very easy not to fall off. I mean, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not an issue. The appcnnect cyclist riding their bikes inside
Speaker 1: to real time races and virtual worlds through a mobile device,
Speaker 1: a computer, Apple TV, kind of anything. The company's raised
Speaker 1: six hundred and twenty million dollars. Backers include KKR, Premiere Holdings,
Speaker 1: Amazon's Alexa Fund, adding up to a market cap of
Speaker 1: more than a billion dollars. We've got back with us
Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO of Swift, Eric Minn. He
Speaker 1: joins us from New York. Eric, welcome back. How are you.
Speaker 1: It's good to see. We're going to work on getting
Speaker 1: your audio all set up. You're in New York because
Speaker 1: you've got a new map out. It's essentially an update
Speaker 1: to the game that allows people to ride in different
Speaker 1: play in a different place. We're going to get to
Speaker 1: that in a second. But it's been close to a
Speaker 1: year since we caught up, so I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get an update on the business. So about a year ago,
Speaker 1: you would just announced the Swift Ride. That's this thirteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars smart bike to get more people on the app.
Speaker 1: Has it worked.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, we started the business as a software company,
Speaker 3: really discounting the hardware. We didn't want to be in
Speaker 3: the hardware business, but it's just such an important part
Speaker 3: of the overall experience. And I think after you know,
Speaker 3: years of working hard and investing in hardware, I think
Speaker 3: we really landed a product that resonates with with the masses.
Speaker 3: So it's been very successful. This is our second year
Speaker 3: and the sales have been very, very strong so far.
Speaker 4: We'll talk to us a little bit about how strong
Speaker 4: they've been. Can you give us some idea in terms
Speaker 4: of growth year over year, what kind of momentum you're seeing,
Speaker 4: what kind of growth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, the hardware business is really just
Speaker 3: to help facilitate the onboarding. You know, we've been we've
Speaker 3: probably spent the last ten years figuring out how to
Speaker 3: just remove friction in the whole onboarding and getting customers
Speaker 3: to just get on swift. So we see this as
Speaker 3: just a huge opportunity as we sort of widen the
Speaker 3: audience from you know, sort of the core cycling enthusiasts.
Speaker 2: It's a broader audience.
Speaker 3: It just likes to ride bikes and and like to
Speaker 3: exercise indoors, and cycling happens to be one of the
Speaker 3: you know, the one of the most the easiest and
Speaker 3: the safest and one that is most enjoyable, I think,
Speaker 3: out of all the different activities.
Speaker 2: That are out there.
Speaker 3: But in terms of growth, we are seeing really a
Speaker 3: strong growth in our both in our subscription and our revenues.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we think that the hardware is an important
Speaker 3: aspect of that. I think one of the early and
Speaker 3: early early investors that I spoke to this was like
Speaker 3: almost ten years ago. He said to me that the
Speaker 3: right price point for this hardware, this is the you know,
Speaker 3: the trainer part which he attached to the bike. Back then,
Speaker 3: he said, five hundred dollars is the right price point.
Speaker 3: And it's taken us ten years, a lawsuit, lots of
Speaker 3: investment hardware to finally get to that price point. And
Speaker 3: I can tell you that it's it's finally working.
Speaker 1: How much.
Speaker 4: Well, go ahead, Carol, Well, I think I know you're
Speaker 4: a private company and so you don't have to reveal
Speaker 4: tons of metrics, but we are Bloomberg, you know, And
Speaker 4: I am curious about what kind of growth you've seen
Speaker 4: in terms of bike sales, because it does sound like
Speaker 4: it's an important part just or your top line overall.
Speaker 4: How much it's growing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've seen, you know, revenues grow, you know,
Speaker 3: double digit growth. We're not we're sort of not in
Speaker 3: that phase of growing doubling our business every year, and
Speaker 3: that we had a crazy, crazy growth during COVID years.
Speaker 3: I think now we're in sort of responsible growth and
Speaker 3: I think you know, over over the last few years,
Speaker 3: we sort of went through the painful adjustment of making
Speaker 3: sure that the business is right size and the business
Speaker 3: is really strong. Now we're very profitable and we have,
Speaker 3: you know, plenty of capital.
Speaker 2: To invest in all sorts of areas.
Speaker 3: It was a blessing that and you know, it was
Speaker 3: a blessing that we were able to raise a lot
Speaker 3: of capitals. I don't think capital is the issue anymore.
Speaker 3: It's really just where do we want to place our bets.
Speaker 3: And I think it's it's uh yeah, it's it's business
Speaker 3: the old fashioned way, right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not.
Speaker 1: Every time I've spoken to you, year after year, you've
Speaker 1: said you don't have to raise more capital, you don't
Speaker 1: have to raise more capital. I think this is the
Speaker 1: first time I've heard you say that you're very profitable though.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: This isn't the first year we're profitable, but is the
Speaker 3: first year we are i'd say profitable in a meaningful,
Speaker 3: meaningful sense. And that's because we've just become more efficient
Speaker 3: as a business. You know, we've made a number of
Speaker 3: mistakes in the past, and I think now we know
Speaker 3: we're really good at and we're focused and investing in
Speaker 3: those areas. And I think, you know, we're not going
Speaker 3: to start us making expective investments like we did back
Speaker 3: you know, perhaps a few years ago.
Speaker 1: So does that mean an IPO is on the horizon?
Speaker 3: I think I think for us, we need some more
Speaker 3: time to grow into a story like that. I think
Speaker 3: what we just need to do is just create a
Speaker 3: great business, great product experience, and I think hardware is
Speaker 3: a big, big part of that.
Speaker 2: I think they're exciting.
Speaker 3: We have an exciting uh product roadmap, both on the
Speaker 3: software and the hardware side. I think for us going forward,
Speaker 3: it's got to be side side to side by side,
Speaker 3: but our focus will remain for the foresee of future
Speaker 3: around the experience of cycling.
Speaker 1: So then, so, so what does that roadmap look like?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there's.
Speaker 3: Just so much we can do on the on the
Speaker 3: on the product side, the product experience side, and AI
Speaker 3: is something that we're really investing heavily in. I think, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, many people show up unbeknownst to them perhaps
Speaker 3: to get into shape, and I think we've done. I
Speaker 3: think we can do a much better job in demonstrating
Speaker 3: how they can improve, quantifying those metrics, and showing progress.
Speaker 3: I think every swift shows up as with should be recommended.
Speaker 3: The best content given what they've done, you know, perhaps
Speaker 3: the day before, the week wor of the month before.
Speaker 3: So we're really investing in in training and personalized training.
Speaker 3: So this is where AI comes in and this is
Speaker 3: something that will start delivering this fall.
Speaker 4: Hey, before we go, Eric, we've just got about a
Speaker 4: minute or under a minute. How does the New New
Speaker 4: York City map kind of fit into all of what
Speaker 4: you were saying?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I'm a New Yorker, so I'm super excited.
Speaker 3: When we launched the business, we didn't start with Central Park,
Speaker 3: so we landed that a number of years ago, and
Speaker 3: this is the first expansion of the city.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited.
Speaker 3: We're going to Brooklyn, We're going to Times Square and
Speaker 3: so this is a bit of no sluger for me.
Speaker 3: This is my playground for many, many years. So we're
Speaker 3: here in New York activating and launching the expansion.
Speaker 1: Well, next time you hear Eric, come by. We always
Speaker 1: love it when you join us on Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Daily and give us an update on Swift. Once again.
Speaker 1: Eric Mann, he's the co founder and CEO of Swift,
Speaker 1: joining us this afternoon from New York.
Speaker 4: And there's the Hudson Tunnel in this man.
Speaker 1: No bikes allowed in that tunnel, Carol. Really Yeah, Casey
Speaker 1: Neistat did it a few years ago, many years ago.
Speaker 1: There's an old YouTube video of him doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of scary.
Speaker 4: I can only match.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's in there. Mm hmm