Late last year, the bottom fell out for Peloton. As life crept back to normal after almost two years of pandemic restrictions, demand for the company’s trademark exercise bike faltered, bringing the brand’s stock down with it. Activist investor Blackwells Capital, which owns a 5 percent stake in the company, , floating a range of big-name tech companies as potential buyers. Reports that��the company had and slashed its sales goals began to circulate, a dark cloud that was swiftly followed by news that its founder, John Foley, was stepping down as CEO and the company was laying off 2,800 employees.

Barry McCarthy, the former CFO of Spotify, who was installed as Foley’s replacement, has rejected acquisition talk, making it clear that Peloton plans on going it alone, says Simeon Siegel, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets. Perhaps more importantly, Foley doesn’t want to sell. And while he may no longer be CEO, he’s taken on the role of executive chairman and continues to effectively control the company. (Foley’s dual-class stock structure means that, even if he doesn’t own a majority of shares, he has a majority of votes.) “Unless John wants to sell, this company isn’t going to sell,” says Dan Primack, a business editor at Axios and the author of the Pro Rata newsletter.

That doesn’t mean someone with deep pockets—hello, Amazon or Apple—couldn’t sweep in with an offer too good to refuse. But this hypothetical company would have to pay top dollar. According to Siegel, that’s likely not an enticing prospect, in part because Peloton, with its stunted growth projections, isn’t promising��enough to be an attractive acquisition target.

Although many headlines have speculated on how Peloton will end, there’s one potential salvation from this doom and gloom: the company’s dedicated user base. Peloton rose to prominence by creating an excellent customer experience through the breadth and personalization of its fitness classes, a feature that hasn’t disappeared. As it stands, its churn rate remains “extraordinarily low, below 1 percent of people,” Primack says. Part of this is possibly due to the fact��that customers who can afford to pay thousands of dollars for a bike or treadmill can afford��the additional $39 a month subscription fee; plus, investing in something that expensive is a good incentive not to throw in the towel, at least for the first couple years. But it also speaks to the company’s ability to create engaging content that users can customize and truly connect with.

After all, before Peloton was a cautionary tale, it was a Silicon Valley darling that found��success through its ambition and mutability, and its shifting brand identity. Started��as an exercise company in 2012, Peloton’s to the point where it began marketing itself not as a fitness juggernaut but as a and a . Its became social media influencers with millions of followers each, and the brand entered the pop culture lexicon before COVID hit. Growth (and brand awareness) soared: from September 2019 to the same month a year later, Peloton bike and treadmill subscriptions rose from 563,000 to 1.3 million. In response, the company spent heavily on expanding its manufacturing capacity, betting that the increased demand would last. As the pandemic progressed, however, this hockey-stick trajectory faltered: in September 2021, Peloton had 2.5 million members, but����in early 2022, sending its stock spiraling. (After quadrupling in 2020, Peloton’s share price has in the past 12 months.)

For the company’s most dedicated users, this downturn has been distressing. At least that’s how it’s felt for Alison Smoker, 38, a mother of three in Atlanta who purchased a Peloton bike in December 2019. Despite its high price (bikes start at $1,495) and the cost of a monthly subscription, the change��made financial sense to Smoker, who’d previously shelled out $25 to $30 a pop for SoulCycle and FlyWheel classes.

Smoker has since become a Peloton convert; she appreciates being able to work in sessions around her schedule, and its deep library of classes. Like so many users, she’s developed parasocial relationships with her favorite instructors, who she follows on social media, tracking major milestones like births, weddings, and, more recently, and the . “It sounds like I’m friends with these people,” she says, laughing. That is very much by design. Peloton’s workouts are expertly infused with instructors’ backstories, personalities, and unique energies. When Smoker wants to “laugh through something,” she takes a class with Cody Rigsby; when she feels like dancing, it’s cardio with Ally Love; if it’s inspiration she’s after, “Robin [Arzon] is my go-to every time.”

Smoker has become such a fan of Peloton that she regularly invites girlfriends over to try out the bike, eager to convince them to get one and join her for live workouts. But with the reopening of gyms and fitness classes, it’s an increasingly difficult sell. A sale of the company makes her nervous—“I’m not a big fan of Amazon,” she says—and she doesn’t want the unique feel and vibe of the classes to change.

Primack says the company hasn’t done well in anticipating this changing supply and demand: it bet big that a pandemic-induced spike in orders was the new normal rather than a temporary feature of an unprecedented virus. “It would be interesting to see what Peloton would be like today had there not been a pandemic and they had been able to continue growing on a gradual upward trend,” he says.

As the demand for Peloton continues to taper off, a sustainable future hinges on the company’s ability to accept that its target audience may not be as large as it once thought, says Siegel. The logical next step, then, becomes focusing on core customers like Smoker who would likely pay more for a subscription, particularly one with additional features, rather than chasing significantly more users by lowering prices. Peloton has expanded its offerings in the past—it launched in 2020, late last year, and just —and there’s been talk of a branded rowing machine. For its part, Peloton believes its treadmills represent a long-term growth opportunity; it’s not difficult to imagine hardcore loyalists purchasing multiple machines and��building out an exclusively branded Peloton at-home gym. While much of the high-end, connected fitness market has been saturated, there’s still room to expand, Primack says, just not at the rate it was growing.

A renewed focus on core customers could also mean modifying its membership tiers. Erika K., a 31-year-old project manager who lives in New Jersey, pays $12.99 for a digital-only subscription, which includes virtually all of Peloton’s content. Her relationship with the brand is far more casual than Smoker’s: she downloaded the app a few months ago after learning her insurance covered the membership cost and has been using it three or four times a week ever since. Like Smoker, she appreciates the breadth of content, the ability to fit classes into her schedule, and the quality of instructors. Unlike Smoker, she doesn’t follow any instructor on social media and isn’t a brand loyalist. If the app suddenly cost her, she’d ditch it: in her opinion, there are too many free, similar apps to justify spending money on another one.

Offering users like Erika Peloton’s library of content, or “crown jewel,” without any expectation they’ll buy a bike and opt in to a more expensive membership is not a money-making strategy, Siegel says. What’s more, all-access members who pay far more for the same digital content could begin to question the dynamic, particularly as the company continues to beef up its off-bike offerings. Going forward, Siegel says it might make sense to offer digital subscribers an ad-supported option or less class variety to differentiate between the two tiers and encourage members to upgrade, although it might mean Peloton could lose users like Erika and see overall user numbers decrease.

Going this route would require a clear understanding from executives of the limits of Peloton’s user base, Siegel says. Despite a few indicators, including shutting down a domestic warehouse, and subsequent layoffs, he’s skeptical that management is committed to a more circumscribed long-term vision, particularly while Foley remains in the rider’s seat.

But if Peloton can dial back its ambitions, rein in spending, and eventually stabilize its share price, there are millions of active users like Smoker still ready to regularly interact with the brand. Primack points to the many communities on social media that have sprung up around instructors or different workouts. “These are really dedicated groups of people, and they aren’t small,” he says. Every Saturday, Primack does a live hourlong Peloton run, and every Saturday he’s joined by thousands of other users. “It can’t be that everyone happens to have 10 AM ET as the most ideal time for them to run on a treadmill,” he says. “They want to feel that sense of community.” The company has done a consistently good job building and maintaining this social, communal fitness experience that motivates users to keep showing up. There’s a possible future in which “the customer experience doesn’t change for the people who have been having a great experience,” Siegel says.

Smoker really hopes that’s the case. By this point, Peloton is part of her weekly routine; its instructors give her a sense of connection and, during the darkest days of the pandemic, its outdoor workouts offered a healthy dose of much-needed alone time. To this day, the brand’s consistently motivating classes, combined with their flexibility, remain the biggest draw for her. Giving it up would be a significant loss. “I can do this on my schedule—it’s motivated me to be healthier than I was before,” she says.

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The candlelit nap room is beautiful. It’s also empty. Alone among��the Himalayan salt candles, blankets, and plush pillows, I lie on my back and try to relax as birdsong plays��faintly in the background. I’m at co-working behemoth WeWork’s first wellness facility, , located in the basement of a skyscraper in New York City’s financial district.��The nap program, held three afternoons a��week��in the center’s yoga room, launched about nine��months ago.

Halfway through my 20-minute stay, the birdsong��gives way to ominous animal noises, lending a dramatic cast to my question: Will anyone else join me? No one does.��As I leave the empty, flickering room to rejoin the working world above me, I’m disappointed in my inability to calm my mind enough to sleep. Somehow��it feels like an indication that I’m further from wellness than when I arrived.

At this point in its evolution, wellness culture has become synonymous with aspiration. According to and , Americans are more anxious,��lonely, and overwhelmed than ever before; at the same time, there has never been such an extensive array of products and services that purport to cure us so thoroughly that we transcend healthiness and become well.

As the��market has matured, physical-wellness centers, which offer an extensive��range of services, like meditation classes, vibrational-energy healing, and color therapy,��have proliferated. , slated to open later this summer in New York City, is billed by cofounder Kane Sarhan as an antidote to, and oasis from, modern-day city living. Like Rise by We, it��will operate��on a membership model,��but with pricing��that ranges from $210 to $375 per month��(plus a $500 initiation fee), it��will provide��a more comprehensive, tailored experience, with members��paired with a personal-health coach after joining.��Other New York City–based centers, like , , and��, meanwhile, sell a dizzying variety of à��la carte wellness treatments, including��CBD massages and��Botox. , “an inclusive space focused on holistic health and wellness,”��offers $190��monthly memberships as well as drop-in sessions.��

Each of these businesses��is selling��the same��general promise: to provide��an antidote to the deskbound jobs, take-out dinners, alcohol-fueled weekends,��and daily stressors��of the outside world.��“Most people in New York��aren’t living well,” says Sarhan. “It’s just the lifestyle we’ve created for ourselves: work hard, play hard, career driven. The stimulation of the city is not good for us in general.”

After��Sarrah Hallock was diagnosed with a thyroid condition a decade ago, she consulted both��her��primary-care��and Chinese-medicine doctors; the latter prescribed some herbs for the condition, she says, while the former told her to avoid them.��Hallock��cofounded��The Well with Sarhan and Rebecca Parekh in 2015, in part to counteract what she saw��to be a��rigid American approach to health care.��The new center��will offer��personalized, integrated wellness plans, including��treatments generally accepted as therapeutic by the medical establishment (massage, physical therapy) as well as��those that are decidedly not (vibrational-energy healing, Ayurveda). Members of The Well will��check in with a��health coach��each week and examine 13 different lifestyle components, such as mental health, financial health, and nutrition. (Its health coaches have��a certificate in nutrition and have��completed an apprenticeship with an M.D.) The center also has who will��focus on functional��and preventative medicine, areas its founders feel are often overlooked by the general health care system. While The Well’s M.D.’s will be able to��provide annual checkups and perform blood tests,��members will nevertheless be��advised to continue to see an outside general practitioner.��“To be able to have a Chinese-medicine doctor talking to your M.D. and your M.D. talking to your yoga teacher is so powerful,” Hallock says. To me, this sounds like a nightmare scenario in which one’s health is micromanaged to the point of absurdity. But perhaps this is the only way pure aspirational wellness can be achieved.��

Modrn Sanctuary in Midtown��Manhattan sells��offerings similar to The Well, in addition to��further-out-there treatments, like����and . On a recent visit to the facility, which is��decorated with plush furniture��and trendy art on black walls,��I try��the crystal-light and sound treatment. The��30-minute, $45��session calls for��participants to��lie beneath a row of colored crystals in order��to supposedly��improve��sleep��and��focus, as well as reap a��range of other alleged health benefits. (The scientific evidence to support most of these claims��is , although researchers say��crystals may be able to��provide a placebo effect that could help treat some conditions, like pain and anxiety.) The bed is warm and vibrates��pleasantly, while headphones pipe��the sound of rain into my ears. At the end of the session, a soothing voice��via my headphones��advises me to��return to “experience all seven frequencies” for maximum effect.

I also try Modrn’s��salt room, an Instagram-worthy space constructed out of millennial-pink Himalayan salt bricks and lined with salt crystals of the same��hue. I can’t say I feel��any of the benefits this��treatment��purportedly offers——but the experience of sitting in a beautiful, quiet room��in the heart of Manhattan is nice. As I head��back out into the urban crush, I reach��if not a state of equanimity, a feeling of one slightly removed from the chaos.��

Modrn claims that its��services provide much more dramatic benefits than mere calmness,��including��weight loss (), reduced stress and anxiety (), and antiaging (). When a client expresses doubt about any of the marketed health benefits, founder Alexandra Janelli doesn’t push back. “People are like, ‘This is bullshit,’” she says. “We’re like, ‘That’s OK. This is not the treatment for you.’” Her approach is to acknowledge someone’s opinion before probing what brought them in and whether they are curious enough to learn more or try the service for themselves. “If they are pooh-poohing it altogether,��we leave it alone,” she says.

A few days before��my nap session, I visited��Rise by We to��attend one of the facility’s guided sauna sessions. It’s Saturday morning, and the spa area and gleaming locker room (replete with organic soaps, conditioners, and tampons)��are crowded. An attendant with a tablet turns away two women apologetically—the session is at capacity. As we wait for the sauna doors to open, the group in front of me makes brunch plans for later that day.��

Once inside, a��staff member leads us through breathing exercises as he diffuses��a range of essential oils (rosemary, citrus, basil, tea tree, and peppermint) into the air. After pouring each one onto the heated rocks, he furiously whips a towel around his head to spread the steamy, scented air further, an effect at once impressive and comical. “I’m proud of you, in a way,” he gravely tells the dripping room at the end of the 20-minute session��before releasing us into the welcome, outside cool. A racially diverse, spandex-clad group, most of whom appear to be in their twenties��or thirties,��lingers in the main spa area, chatting and refilling their bottles with fruit-tinged water.��

The scene would make Avi Yehiel, WeWork’s head of wellness, happy. “We wanted to create a space where you could come and stay longer,” he says. Unlike the in-and-out experience of a gym, Rise by We is an environment where people can hang out without having to work out.��While $35 day passes are available, most��customers are members. “We are focusing on people who want to create connections,” Yehiel says. The club regularly holds events like band nights or anniversary parties��in the spa or café; some are health-related, but many��are simply an excuse for members to get together.

Member Nicole Rousseau says she values this community aspect more than the fitness classes or spa services. A self-employed , she joined a WeWork��space in New York’s financial district��half a decade ago to fight the isolation that comes with working from home. When the company��beta-tested Rise by We��prior to its official launch in the fall of 2017, Rousseau was one of the WeWork members selected by the company to participate.

She liked the experience so much that��she replaced her WeWork membership with one for Rise by We. Today��the club provides the same sense of belonging as the coworking space did. Unlike a traditional gym, “it’s not a transaction,” Rousseau says. After a fitness class or spa session, she often lingers in the spa over complimentary La Colombe coffee and artisanal Bushwick Tea. The people at the front desk know her, as do the instructors. “I feel connected,” she says.

In a world where loneliness��has reached��endemic levels, this community connection shouldn’t��be trivialized.��Still, it seems like the more wellness strategies emerge, the more opportunities we have to fail at leveling up. Maybe that’s because the word wellness—or at least the feeling of it—is so hard to define. It’s possible to be physically healthy, with a good job, a solid support system, a savings account, a balanced diet, and a regular exercise routine without checking all the boxes necessary to meet the criteria. (Even if you can afford Rise by We’s monthly membership, you might not be able to leave your desk in the middle of the weekday to work out, much less nap.)

Whether exotic and unproven alternative treatments are doing any good—or just soaking up the scarce attention and time people could deploy for more proven health care—remains��up for debate.��There’s also the matter of cost. Some centers are more expensive than others, but none are truly affordable for most Americans just seeking adequate health coverage. Those who can pay��the price of admission are promised equilibrium, where every aspect of one’s life—physical fitness, nutrition, spirituality, skincare—flourish in perfect harmony. Those who can’t, well, they’re probably facing problems that extend beyond the pearly borders of the wellness industry.��

When I bring up the question��of inequality, Sarhan of The Well says the company’s mission is to build a global brand that will eventually be powerful enough “to influence policy, to influence politicians, to change the way our country thinks about food and wellness holistically.”��

“None of us are in it for the money, to be totally honest with you,” he continues. “We are bleeding hearts. For us, we want to change the way people think about health. The way we are going to do it, if we start with this brand and build this platform that caters to… you funnel down from there.”��

The Well is, of course, a for-profit business accessible only to��a very specific demographic. It’s unfair to ask it to solve systemic issues driving disparities in health and wellness, such as income inequality and the food lobby. But the idea that providing high-priced wellness services to the nation’s wealthiest will lead to improvements for its most in need feels willfully naive. And yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, Yehiel of Rise by We��offers up a similar theory. Yes, a membership��might be unaffordable for the average person, but “we need to look at the good things,” he says.��Rise, along with other wellness centers, has helped elevate the term wellness��into the public consciousness, Yehiel says.��While only a fraction of Americans report actively pursuing a wellness practice in their day-to-day life, as the movement’s profile continues to rise, “it will trickle down to all the communities��eventually.”��

Again, this feels like a pipe dream. And even if trickle-down wellness were��to miraculously occur, it’s unclear whether that would be a net positive. The wellness movement has good qualities, including its emphasis on balance and holistic health. But as the industry has grown, the concept has evolved into a never-ending pursuit capable of absorbing a seemingly infinite amount of time and money. Even for those who can afford to invest in the chase, wellness can be exhausting—which is why places like The Well, which outsource wellness management to an integrated team of practitioners, exist in the first place. For everyone else, the game is rigged from the start.��

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On a recent afternoon in March, I laced up my sneakers and headed outside. It was my first run with , a subscription-based fitness app that provides on-demand audio workouts. Over a pop-y��soundtrack, trainer Meg Takacs announced��through my headphones that she would be guiding me through a 30-minute��prerecorded intermediate interval session.��Sunny but firm, Takacs guessed when I—or��really��anyone listening to the workout—started��to flag three-quarters of the way in��and cheerfully indicated she would have none of it.��“Everything you’ve worked for so far in this workout comes down to these last minutes,” she said into my ear. “This is nothing but focus and force.” My lungs were screaming, but I picked up the pace, dodging pedestrians and dog walkers.

On my way back home, I let another trainer, Jaime McFaden, guide me through a 32-minute walk-run for beginners. The music was upbeat, and McFaden was pleasantly chatty, focusing as much on life advice as the workout��itself. “Think of a positive habit that you want to implement into your day, into your life…. Whatever it is, take a moment right now and think about the habit that you are working on,” she advised.��At one point, she directed me to “find some beautiful stuff that makes you smile.” Dutifully, I took in the washed-out trees, the sky, and the enviable stoops of Brooklyn in late winter. As the class drew to an end and she bid goodbye, I found myself wishing she’d hang around the rest of the way home.

It’s��this��bond between��users and their favorite��highly motivational trainers that makes��Aaptiv worth paying for��even in a sea of free competitors��says CEO and founder Ethan Agarwal. Membership, which costs $15 a month or $100��a year, provides access to more than thousands of��audio classes in a dozen categories, such as outdoor running, treadmill, elliptical, spinning, boxing, yoga, and meditation,��from 20��trainers. This connection��may seem like a squishy differentiator, but it’s a sales pitch that has clearly convinced investors:��founded in 2015, the company has raised $55��million in venture funding to date, including a $22 million infusion that came with a reported valuation of over $200 million. In December, Crunchbase Aaptiv as the fifth-most-funded fitness startup��behind��big guns like ClassPass, Flywheel Sports, and Peloton. It’s one of two��companies��in the top ten��focused exclusively on a fitness app.

Like most self-respecting startup founders, Agarwal’s mission is ambitious. Aaptiv is more than a fitness app, he tells me. Instead, it’s a service designed to help people become better versions of themselves by leading healthier, more active lives. When I point out��that the creators of other fitness apps—or any fitness company—would likely say the same thing, he shakes his head. Most of them, he says, are too focused on aesthetic markers like��weight loss and muscle tone��or fitness goals such as strength, speed, and endurance.��“I think of us��more as a digital coach,” he says. “We are much more someone who is there for you as opposed to someone who is there to guilt you into looking a certain way.”��Other apps are in the fitness business. Aaptiv is, too. But��according to Agrawal, it’s also��in the relationship-building business.��

At 33 years old, Agarwal is trim and visibly fit. It wasn’t always this way. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s��Wharton School in 2011, he got a peripatetic��job at McKinsey, a top consulting firm. On the road more days than not, Agarwal’s weight��crept upward��until, as if overnight, he was 40 pounds heavier than he’d been before he started graduate school.

He remembers the moment when the physical transformation fully hit him. It was October 6, 2013, and he was in Chicago��for work. He’d just come back from a client dinner and was changing into sweats in his hotel room when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. “I had this moment where I was like, Who is that person?” he says. More than the weight gain itself, he says he��was devastated by what it represented: “I wasn’t taking care of myself,” he says. He texted his then girlfriend (and now��wife), who suggested he take up running.

For all his��careful insistence that Aaptiv is not a weight-loss app, Agarwal’s��anecdotes sometimes��fall��into the habit, common among many health startups, of conflating a lower number on the scale with virtuous traits such as self-control, confidence, and discipline. Of the��member success stories Agarwal shares with me, some��portray weight loss as an inciting incident that led to more essential changes in users’��lives: in the case of the business owner who went from 400 to 200 pounds, it was the gumption to expand into new markets. For the mom who felt comfortable putting on a bathing suit for the first time in years, it was a renewed sense of self-confidence.

(Still, Lauren Hanafin, Aaptiv’s head of communication, is adamant: “Our members come to us for various reasons based on their own lives—some come to run a faster marathon, some come to run their first mile, some come to get stronger, and some came to us because they want to lose weight,”��she says. “We promote all of these things if it’s done with the intention to live a healthier life and makes them feel good. It’s not about weight.”)

As Agarwal tells it, his own transformation began with a search for��accessible workouts that he could take with him on the road. The available options weren’t satisfying—“you needed to be pretty well educated on the fitness market to learn how to use any of these products, and that wasn’t me,” he says—and��for a nascent runner, they were too centered on video. At the time, video-based workouts��were blowing up (), and a bevy of YouTube fitness influencers had established themselves with free that racked up thousands, sometimes millions, of views. Agarwal wanted an audio app that guided him through workouts in a way that was convenient, unintimidating, and didn’t require him to stare at a screen. “I started thinking, How can I make this, and is this something that can help other people, too?” he says. ��

In 2015, Agarwal left his job at McKinsey to focus on Aaptiv full-time, raising money, aggressively hiring, and refining the business model. Now��the company is located on the 49th floor of One World Trade Center, looking down on Manhattan.

When I visit in March, the office is half empty. (The company moved in April 2018, having outgrown its old space.)��Everything gleams:��the white floor, the healthy snack bar,��the panoramic view of Midtown’s skyscrapers.��I head to the back, where John Thornhill, one of Aaptiv’s trainers, is in a dark recording booth working with sound engineer Jack Mullin, who sits directly outside, in front of a mixing desk,��to put the finishing touches on an advanced elliptical class. To achieve the personal connection Agarwal says gives the company an advantage, Aaptiv is highly selective in choosing its trainers. While each has his or her own particular style, they share an uncanny ability—aided by user data and feedback from Aaptiv’s��community—to tap into their audiences’ psyche and��motivate��while leaving��them wanting more. “The connection and tension of that relationship…that’s the whole goal,” Agarwal says.��

Thornhill and Mullin have already run��through the class once and are now in finesse mode, rerecording certain segments to improve the tone, enunciation, or wording. I’m given headphones so I can listen in. “Feel that chest,” Thornhill croons into the mic, somehow pouring energy and optimism into each word.

“I think we need something more specific than feel,” Mullin says. Thornhill tries it again, this time swapping in “engage.”

The two of them continue onward, pausing regularly to edit descriptions, modify delivery, or refine phrasing. By now, Mullin knows Thornhill’s verbal tics, such as a tendency to pepper his instructions with certain words. (“I say baby too much,”��Thornhill says at one point.)

Thornhill eventually pops out of the booth for a breather. Tall and predictably muscular,��with light brown hair pulled into a low ponytail, he’s a friendly but more subdued version of his audio-booth twin.

“I take one of John’s classes when I’m having a bad day,”��Hanafin��tells me.

Later, I listen to Thornhill’s��Backstreet Is Back Alright��treadmill class at my gym. As promised, it’s aggressively upbeat; I can see how people could use it as a mood lifter. When Thornhill tells me to “let the chorus guide you through your speeds,” it feels rude not to comply.

Aaptiv��is far��from the only company betting��on the��personalized convenience and (comparatively) low cost of a digital trainer. “The hottest trend in the past three to four years is home-based fitness workouts,” says Rommel Dionisio, the former managing director of equity research at Aegis Capital, a broker-dealer based in New York City.��Peloton, the fitness company that sells $1,995��exercise bikes on which users can stream cycling classes (for an additional $39 a month), pioneered the livestream��class format.��The 800-pound gorilla in the digital space, Peloton has sold more than 400,000 bikes and is .

Peloton has also set its sights firmly on Aaptiv’s user base, having recently launched its own��subscription app that,��for $19��a month, includes access to audio-only classes for��live , no equipment required. It’s not the only one challenging the company:��in July, ClassPass, the in-person��workout-class subscription service, came out with its own that features on-demand classes from a curated list of trainers. In other words, it operates exactly like Aaptiv. Only it’s free.

When I ask about this, Agarwal brushes it off. The difference between Aaptiv and its free competitors, he claims, is the company’s quality—of its trainers, classes, and overarching mission. If these distinguishers don’t totally convince in a category as crowded as digital fitness, Agarwal gets it. The proof��is in the user base, he says. After a 20,000-plus new-member influx this January, total membership now sits at 230,000, and about 75 percent of those��are yearly subscribers. (Meanwhile, the��monthly churn rate is in the mid-single digits, according to the company.)��“If the quality or the experience was on par [with other fitness options], our business would go nowhere, because everyone would just go to the free product,” he says.

Despite this member uptick,��Aaptiv still faces challenges. Before its latest funding round, ��if it wanted to, adding that it wouldn’t follow the same path as SoulCycle (which registered for an IPO only to backpedal last May, citing “market conditions”). When I ask him if he’s still thinking about going public next year, he hesitates. Not in 2020, he says. Maybe in��2021.

In general, pushing back an IPO can be “a cause for concern,”��Dionisio says, a signal that a company’s internal goals aren’t being met. In Aaptiv’s case specifically, it could be an indicator that “the subscription model is not yet bearing fruit,” says Thad Peterson, a senior analyst at the research and advisory firm Aite Group. Still, Peterson says that delaying an IPO is not necessarily worrisome.��(In response to these suggestions, Agarwal said: “Our decision to stay private for the time being is not based on company performance and [is] instead based on the direction we feel is best to grow the company.”)

Now��Agarwal is focused on continuing to expand Aaptiv’s user base, in part by launching in new markets. In��November��the company an international expansion in English; the app is now available for��download in 20 countries, including Brazil, India, and Australia. Aaptiv has carefully studied the way fitness preferences vary based on geography—in parts of Europe, for example, gym culture isn’t nearly as big as it is in the U.S.—and is in the process of recording classes in other languages, including Spanish and German.��

Aaptiv is also working on the launch of a new personalized service that would allow users to integrate all their workouts—whether that’s��a session at or a yoga class at a boutique studio—into the app. Agarwal won’t go into details��other than to say that the platform will better enable users to commit to good habits. He also hinted that the app might include a healthy-eating component in the future.

Given its focus on relationship building, I tell Agarwal that since trying the app, I’ve noticed how it insulates you in a private audio experience even as, in the case of the outdoor running classes, you move through public spaces. We spend so much of our time hooked up to our phones, I say,��and Aaptiv, with its chorus of on-demand coaches, takes this a step further. Does he ever worry that his app is just another way we can tune out the world and each other?��

It’s something he’s thought about a lot, he says. Only I have it backward. The way he sees it, Aaptiv isn’t amplifying disconnection, it’s helping alleviate it. Yes, it would be nice if we all had the option to work out with friends or family at our convenience, and “everyone should feel free to do that,” he says. But more often than not, that’s not the way the world works.��“A lot of people go on walks or runs by themselves because they don’t have anyone else to go with,” Agarwal says.��

On-demand trainers provide the support users need to build better habits, push themselves, and make exercise a regular part of their lives, he continues. For many people, they also provide a form of emotional support and companionship that might not exist outside the app. “If I can help someone’s loneliness by giving them someone they feel like they are talking to, or someone they feel like they are interacting with, that actually feels like I am helping the problem as opposed to causing it,” he says.

In this vein, Aaptiv recently held a ��in New York, where users gained access to a private gym where they could work out using the app. All 140 spots were claimed within hours, and attendance was in the hundreds (each attendee was allowed to bring up to two guests).��As a surprise, Aaptiv trainers stopped by, allowing attendees to talk to some of their favorite personalities.��

The strength of the reaction has gotten Aaptiv thinking about doing more “real-life events.”��For a company that has built its name��turning an��in-person interaction��into an on-demand, one-way, audio-based experience, this expansion would represent something of a bizarre full-circle moment. As intimate as Aaptiv’s workouts can feel,��it’s created a novelty of classes where users can converse with their favorite trainers—and the trainers can talk back.

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