Will more companies be shutting down in the next 12-24 months?

….on my way to buy Pierer stock cus our boi Jeff is smart n stuff 

Perrier has been criminally unvalued since the La Croix fad of 2018. Primed for a big rebound.

Look who's talking about dampening now! 

Holy schlamoly. If Felt sold 24k bikes and no one has seen a Felt in the wild…

How many Stumpjumpers have been sold?? The number has to be inconceivably high.

24k bikes sold with only 47% sold in NA, this explains why no one are seeing them.

Giant sold 6.6 million bikes worldwide in 2017 just to give you an idea.

Or, in the matter of commerce.....

Hey biz thread subscribers, I met with Jeff about a month ago for an Inside Line to discuss the current state of things. It was a rad discussion. The podcast and its copy are below. Enjoy! I know I did.

Thanks to Maxxis Tires | FOX | Jenson USA for supporting The Inside Line

Today we're joined by Jeff Brines, a long-time mountain biker, Litter Mag and Vital MTB fan. He's also educated and versed in finance. He kicked off a forum thread on Vital MTB that asked "Will more companies be shutting down in the next 12-24 months?" At a year old, the thread has over 100,000 views with nearly 800 replies as news about our industry has broken. We discuss the past and current state of the bicycle industry through his analysis and tools and see if we can figure out where we're headed.

Thank you Vital listeners!

THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.

Podcast Contents
0:00 - Intro, who is Jeff and what are we discussing?
6:11 - Why start a Vital MTB forum post about bike companies shutting down?
11:07 - Why did the *money people* think MTB would make them rich during Covid?
17:30 - Is it just greed and ego?
19:55 - Why did bikes stop selling?
23:49 - Why don't brands save money for slow times?
27:54 - Most of the bike industry is privately held
32:52 - Companies that went under, does the investment money just disappear?
38:05 - Original owners buying a company back, Family Office and Private Equity
46:25 - Private equity and how it works
51:54 - Is going bankrupt expected with venture capital investors?
53:51 - The lunacy of VanMoof being worth $500 million
1:04:23 - What does the bike industry future look like?
1:12:41 - Is there any incentive to get into the bike industry now?
1:15:41 - Is there an ideal company size?
1:17:48 - Will the business world repeat the same mistakes 10 years from now?
1:21:31 - Tools to learn about the bike industry
1:26:10 - Vital audience survey

Check out Jeff's slideshow presentation here (Google Slides)

Vital MTB Audience Surveys (scroll to bottom of page)

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

 

Thanks for putting out the podcast! I'm excited to give it a listen bit by bit over the next few days.

Cool timing, too, because I just listened to a podcast yesterday that talks (briefly) about the financial side of a smaller bike company so that got me super curious about the industry as a whole ("hole?") and how financial folk think about at this stuff.

On the Bikes or Death podcast, Tim Krueger - CEO of Esker Cycles and former Product Manager at Salsa Cycles - talked about a million things including Esker's financial situation after the last 5 years of bike industry boom and bust.

In short: they're doing well and can easily point to the reasons why.

That entire Bikes or Death podcast episode was really good, though. I definitely think it's worth the listen!

Sounds like I've got some listening to do soon...

Its a little bit comical to see the results of the Gas Gas buy a dirt bike get a free e bike promotion. That has the same feeling as the Kona buy one get one deal. When you are giving something away you are solely trying to get it out of inventory and cut your losses before sending it to the dump or a mass auction for pennies on the dollar.

Also funny how when you make totally junk e bikes no one takes them seriously.