This episode of Hustle Hot Takes covers the recent acquisition of the home fitness startup Mirror by Lululemon for $500 million, the potential for a Peloton acquisition, and the viral success of a young VFX artist who caught the attention of Disney’s chairman. The hosts analyze the business implications of these events and share their perspectives on the current market landscape.
Topics: Lululemon, Mirror, Peloton, Hamilton, Disney, Business Acquisitions, Entrepreneurship, VFX, Viral Marketing
Lululemon Acquires Mirror [00:02]
Yo, Hustle Hot Takes. We got a great one in this episode, and today we’ll be talking about Lululemon acquiring the home fitness startup Mirror and, of course, the release of Hamilton. So let’s get right to it. Big news in the athleisure world. Lululemon acquired the home fitness startup Mirror for $500 million. And now we’re going to get into what this means for Lululemon. According to Bank of America, they believe that Mirror can generate $700 million and acquire 600,000 subscribers by 2023. So as I’ve worked in the investment banking world, I can say these are probably optimistic numbers, but even if you’re in that ballpark, it’s a pretty strong acquisition considering that Mirror is already doing some pretty decent numbers.
The History of Mirror [00:51]
This is a great tweet from John Erlichman. He kind of goes through Brynn Putnam, the founder and CEO’s history before she sold Mirror for $500 million to Lululemon. So 10 years ago, she retires from her ballet career and opens a boutique fitness studio. Four years ago, she pursues the idea to launch a fitness startup. Two years ago, she releases Mirror, and today, which was last week, she sells the company to Lululemon for $500 million.
Should Lululemon Buy Peloton? [01:20]
Okay, so the second tweet we have here is from Moiz Ali, host of The Hustle’s Extra Strategy. And Moiz, as many of you would know, is no stranger to the DTC game, and he knows a thing or two about nine-figure exits in the DTC space. So Moiz says, “Lululemon buying Mirror is great to see. Congrats to the Mirror team. I think they need a ‘bet the farm’ mentality, though, and should buy Peloton.” This is probably referring to Lululemon. And he goes, “Imagine a Peloton in every store. Imagine Peloton selling Lululemon studios, etc. Lululemon would be transforming to digital overnight.” You know what? I got to say, I kind of agree with Moiz here. So Lululemon is a $40 billion company. Just go for it, man. Just go for it. I mean, Peloton, a little bit pricey. That’s about 16 billion, so not necessarily an easy move, but sometimes you just got to.
The Mirror vs. TV Joke [02:14]
All right, third tweet comes from Ram Capital, one of the funniest financial Twitter accounts on the internet. So this one just put me in stitches, actually. Okay, so in September, Ram Capital tweeted, “Imagine turning a TV sideways and calling it a mirror.” So he’s referring, I’m assuming, to Mirror the startup. And then on the day of the acquisition, he brought back that old tweet and said, “Imagine turning a TV sideways and calling it a mirror and selling it for $500 million to Lululemon.” Now, I think this is a lighthearted joke. Some people might be offended, but I, you know, I pulled up a Google Doc just to see if Ram Capital was even on point here. So here you see in the middle is a Mirror product, and on the right here, I have a flat-screen TV. So Ram’s saying that if you turn it sideways, they’re a little bit comparable. So I’m going to go right ahead and do that. All right. Okay, this is not super intuitive. Okay, so there, it’s turned sideways. And listen, I’m not saying it’s the same thing, right? I’m just showing you that it fits inside.
Hamilton on Disney+ [03:17]
Okay, second big thing this week is Hamilton. And we’re going to pull it up. A lot of you, I’m assuming, watched Hamilton over the long weekend. And I’m just going to give the news right now. If anybody doesn’t know, Disney+ has a live-action version of Hamilton that is now available. It’s incredible. You should watch it. I was lucky enough to see it in Boston many years ago, not with the original cast, though, so no flex there. But if you’re to ask me, what was the best hot take related to Hamilton that I saw on Twitter this week, it is actually unrelated to Hamilton directly. It is unrelated to Hamilton directly. Okay, that sentence makes no sense. Anyways, let me get to the tweet.
Julian Bass and Bob Iger [03:58]
It’s Julian Bass, a 20-year-old virtual effects TikTok star. He released this video on July the 2nd. Swag, right? So an amazing VFX video. He’s only 20 years old but has been doing virtual effects for nine years. And he just tweets that video and writes, “If y’all can retweet this enough times that Disney calls, that’d be greatly appreciated.” So that’s on July 2nd. Who responds? Disney chairman Bob Iger, right there. And he says, “The world’s going to know your name from Hamilton.” So the best Hamilton-related tweet is about 20-year-old Julian Bass, who blew up the internet. Amazing video. Julian’s an absolute beast, and there’s talk now that he might be playing Spider-Man. Bob Iger did the right thing, made this guy Spider-Man. Absolutely incredible. So those are the hot takes for this week. Thank you very much. We’ll keep this thing going. Leave your comments, and if there’s enough traction, maybe we’ll do this more often. Thank you.