Fixing Rad Power Bikes
As an avid cyclist, I’ve been wondering what happened to Seattle’s homegrown ebike company, Rad Power Bikes. After digging in, I got pretty intrigued by its story arc and the road ahead. Enjoy!
Rad Beginnings:
Once upon a time, Rad Power Bikes was Seattle’s darling—leading innovations in the affordable fat-tire ebike category. Founded in 2007, the company launched its first fat-tire models in 2015. By 2021, it had become North America’s largest ebike brand and raised over $329 million from investors like Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price. It was a resounding DTC success story.
Braking!
Fast forward to today. The batteries and motors that once stood out are now standard on countless Chinese-made ebikes. What started as a revolutionary niche has become a commodity. Meanwhile, established names like Trek and Specialized have captured the mid- and high-end segments.
Rad has struggled for a few years—pulling out of markets, conducting multiple layoffs—and is on its third CEO in three years, with Kathi Lentzsch taking the helm in March. It’s not alone in this downturn. Brands like Cake and VanMoof have gone bankrupt, while Electric Bike Company and Integral Electrics merged to stay afloat. The entire category shows signs of commoditization and saturation.
New Beginnings?
New CEO Kathi Lentzsch comes from brick-and-mortar retail—Bartells, Pottery Barn, Pier 1, and Cost Plus. Since her appointment in March, here’s what I could find on her areas of focus (some predate her appointment):
Retail Partnerships: Expand market access via bike shops and Best Buy. Rad is no longer a DTC brand.
LTV: Rad Care Service Subscription and Trade-in. New revenue streams.
Product enhancements: Reinforce product quality and safety as differentiators in a saturated and commoditized market.
Marketing refresh: Refresh brand identity and elevate sustainability to stand out.
My Take:
These priorities hit the mark. Expanding retail distribution is the single greatest growth lever, and post-sale monetization is a proven path to hardware profits (hello Microsoft, Apple).
But the devil’s in the details.
Here’s what I’d do to save Rad Power Bikes in the next 12 Months:
Close all nine company-owned stores. Operating a handful of high-overhead retail locations isn’t sustainable, even factoring brand halo value.
Exit Best Buy and go all-in on independent bike shops. No shop wants to compete with a mass-market retailer. Win over local dealers—many of whom currently shy away from servicing ebikes—by building partnerships and incentives they can’t refuse.
Double-down on Rad Care subscriptions. Make service subscriptions a default part of every purchase. Customers should buy a bike and a guaranteed local service package in one seamless transaction. The marketing, operations and partnerships need to catch up to this vision
Focus on one or two breakthrough models. Cull the sprawling lineup. Whether it’s a lightweight commuter you can carry up to your office or a theft-proof grocery hauler, Rad needs 1 or 2 clear hero products to cut through the clutter. Segway made its bets - Rad needs to do the same.
Clean up sales channels and fix the DTC portal. Today, competitor brands appear in the Rad Power Bikes category, and radpowerbikes.com doesn’t clearly communicate test-ride options, trade-ins, warranty support, or how to leverage their retail partners. Transform the site into a centralized customer portal for sales, service, and community engagement. Enforce rules and trademarks elsewhere.
Build a moderated community hub. Give riders a place to share routes, mods, repair tips, and sustainability ideas. I’m part of a similar group for a vacation-rental SaaS, and it’s powerful for the brand and the users.
Maniacal cost cutting: As Rad Power Bikes pivots, ruthless cost discipline will be critical—shutting down Rad retail stores, leaning on off-the-shelf Shopify integrations, trimming the product range, and leveraging Meta for community building. These moves may feel austere, but they’ll free up resources to focus on what matters.
Down the Road
If Rad’s turnaround sticks, the company can parlay its new capabilities into adjacent businesses with far larger total addressable markets — much as Shopify evolved from a snowboard e‑tailer into a global commerce platform. The brand‑retailer relationship is ripe for reinvention across product protection, trade‑in, showrooming, and fulfillment. By building best‑in‑class connected services in these areas, Rad could first deploy them in‑house, then externalize them as a scalable offering across multiple product categories.
I think this would be a great investment thesis for Rad’s PE investors which own other consumer brands and could unlock value across their portfolios: Durable Capital (Warby Parker, RH) and Fidelity Management (Yeti, Deckers, Callaway).
Since Rad is a Seattle company, I’m planning to reach out and learn more about their strategy firsthand.
Stay tuned…
