Why expensive workout gear is actually cheap

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

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.

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