This thread is, in my professional opinion, exactly why you don’t make comments like this. Sure, there has been a ton of “feedback” but you have no idea how accurate it is. Further, you have angered some of your core customers…and literally nothing has changed.
You might be right. Yet… when people ask for surveys, you usually just get people who delete the email and move on. Candid feedback has it’s own use and insight.
Maybe not the best way to go about it… but hey… if they were hoping for honest feedback, honest feedback is what they got!
Nate, you are a really good person.
Nate is trying to be a good person here.
He is trying to please everyone.
Sadly, this is a business.
The point of a business is to make money.
Nate remind me the owner of a company I used to work for. They would take the whole company (less than 150 employees) to a holiday getaway to a resort. Paid by the company including the whole family.
They would pay a baby sitter for people who needed it, so employees and +1s could go to the big dinner and have fun, dance and drink (all paid).
I think he has the best interest not only for the customer, but also his employees.
The sad reality is that running a business like this cost money, might not seem like much, but you have to pay developers and many other layers above them. Plus servers to store the massive amount of data we are producing.
Paying a legacy price is a privilege. TR do not owe us anything. We paid for a service, they provided said service. So people need to stop calling out if the business raise the prices.
Will it SUCK BIG TIME? 100%
Can they do it? Yes they can (promises be damned TBH).
Some people will leave, new people will come. Its part of the business.
My take:
Nate developed TR from scretch. He’s grown into CEO role but still a dev at heart. The mindset is like: Put a cool product first and the rest will follow…it’s not ROI or shareholder value first…
This and his forum interaction is what I like so much. I’m sure he’ll come with a good solution for this thread.
I wonder if @Nate_Pearson knows and compares his situation to Jon Mayfield? One of the original Zwift devs. Still at zwift, but recently having taken a step back and trying to develop cool or unknown marginal things again not wanting to be involved in all that big business…
Seems like Nate can do both…prototype of a relatable CEO geek!
At first PB was just a tool to help in avoiding support requests (which plan to pick next…etc)… but it’s evolving into a one stop shop for all kinds of tasks. I use TR self coached (plans don’t fit my needs) so limited PB use for me…but with those upcoming features mentioned I might give it a try again (but it’s not too important for me).
Would love to hear more about Chad’s daily business and which features he’s involved in. Back in the days he told more about the design of the origin training plans and stuff like that. Then it sounded like he was more into studies (physiology/nutrition?)…and he became less present in the podcast besides his famous deep dives…
Also not the best way to gather feedback…again, you have no way of knowing if the feedback is representative of your larger customer base. It is just reflective of those who choose to respond.
But it is much better than accidently triggering a chaotic conversation.
Again, I admire Nate’s openness and willingness to engage with his customers…I do not doubt his sincerity in the slightest. But I’m also willing to bet that TR is significantly larger than it was even 3 years ago. At some point, the tactics that worked when you were smaller do not apply anymore.
While I wish more companies and CEO acted as good faith partners like Nate / TR, I don’t know that this discussion is entirely productive.
While many people like this type of communication, for me at least it seems undisciplined. And I don’t think I am alone in highly valuing steadiness and discipline in a coach. Since TR strives to be a coach, for me, this kind of drama, while highly entertaining, is a negative mark against TR. As are the unfinished features and unfulfilled feature promises.
Sometimes it really is better not to see how the sausage is being made.
I think “undisciplined” is the right term…again, when you are smaller you can have these types of conversations. Not so much as you grow.
I personally don’t view it as a negative mark against TR, as I believe Nate’s intentions are good. He is trying to do the right thing. From that perspective, I even view it as a positive.
I’d say it is more of an unforced error.
I would agree with you and while Nate’s intention was to know his customer base, the problem comes when its time to keep that base happy. He now has an idea about some of the feelings but you are never going to keep any group happy and especially not when it comes to how much cash we are all going to have in our pockets. Whenever we have employee satisfaction surveys at work I always laugh at the question “Do you feel you are adequately compensated for your work?” Who in their right mind looks at their boss and says “No thanks, I wouldnt like a pay raise”?
Sure, but by his own admission, he’s made mistakes before (cf Beers with Chad).
I certainly trust Nate to listen to his customers, but none of us can know what business pressures he needs to juggle. As pointed out elsewhere, some of those things may be easier to resolve in private and might cause fewer grey hairs for @Jonathan and his team But I’m sure it means that there’s never a dull moment at TR!
Probably a triathlete. They’d fret that the raise would mean more responsibilities and less time to train in the pool or something.
Never a triathlete, we don’t sleep and have a lot of sports to pay for!
I will admit that we are not in our right minds though.
Ha…IIRC Beers with Chad was Insta Story being automatically deleted after 1 hour/day (?). Maybe this thread should be auto-terminated/deleted in X hours…
I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to clarify my previous post.
I stated that I’d leave if my cost went up, assuming that I’d be paying $20/mo or $189/yr. To be clear, I wouldn’t be leaving because I hate TR or feel like it’s some sort of broken promise. Those posters need to reflect a bit, in my opinion. TR is a business, not your bestie. Price hikes suck, but it’s not like we grandfathered folks haven’t gotten our money’s worth.
Instead, I’d be leaving to try competitors. At that price point, pretty much all the other software out there is in the same ballpark, so why wouldn’t I shop around? I know I can do that now as most have trials, but I have very little incentive to leave long-term since my TR price is lower and TR is good enough for me, despite any perceived shortcomings.
So in a nutshell, if I’m paying full price, you can expect me to shop around because it would make sense for me to do so! At my current rate, it does not make sense.
When we have received all updates to this point while holding our end of the bargain, why would we expect that to change?
The fact is, as has been repeatedly stated, is that there was a promise made that if you do not cancel your subscription, your price will never go up. What I would say is implicit in that promise is that upgrades come along with that subscription. Why? Because we’ve received all upgrades to this point. Again, why would we expect that to change?
@Chester_Grimpeur post is extremely valid in this situation. If I made that commitment to a bike shop and received all upgraded components for three years, why would I expect that to change just because the all new tech came out? That’s what I’ve been paying consistently to receive all along.
Correct. Because the deal up until now has been that legacy subscribers get all upgrades. That is what has happened with EVERY upgrade to this point. No questions asked. The only thing that has changed is the mention of changing what has been implicitly agreed to up until now.
So I think this highlights part of the problem…a lot of Legacy users are assuming that they will have to pay the current rate, when nothing like that has been communicated.
What if Legacy pricing went form $99 to $125 / year? Still a significant discount vs. the current rate and a pretty minor increase overall (~$2.00 / month). Are you still walking at that point?
Once again, that can work for a quirky little company that wants attention. But if you are meant to be a grown-up company offering a global product that reflects the values of its founders and employees, then you really shouldn’t be posting stuff online that self-destructs because you are worried what might be said by your staff when they are drunk.
“Making you a faster cyclist”, not “Providing you with entertainment”
I don’t think incorporating an inflationary component is a bad idea at all and would still be in the spirit of the promise that was made.
In 2017 I thought TR was good value otherwise I wouldn’t have subscribed. Since then it has been completed revamped with calender, plan builder, ride / history metrics, group workout, AT, etc. It is not recognisable as the same product but I’m paying the same price.
I guess asside from Nate’s promise (thanks Nate ) I expected it to increase. (everything else has I’ve subscribed to)
It’s also probably the cheapest cycling thing I purchase in terms of yearly cost.