Peloton Co-Founder Tom Cortese Speaks to Leap Academy about Life Before and After Peloton

In a new Leap Academy interview, Cortese revisits Peloton’s earliest days, the philosophy background that shaped its community, and the sandwich business he built after leaving.

Peloton co-founder Tom Cortese opened up about leaving the company he helped build, calling it a decision he had never discussed publicly before sitting down with the Leap Academy podcast. Cortese, who co-founded Peloton alongside John Foley in 2012, walked through the company’s earliest struggles, the internal moment that convinced him it was time to go, and how that exit led him into an entirely different industry.

Peloton Co-Founder Tom Cortese on Building From $400,000

Cortese said Peloton started with $400,000 in personal capital and a product that investors repeatedly rejected. He and Foley pitched the idea of bringing boutique fitness classes into people’s homes through connected hardware, and most people they spoke with, including friends and family, thought it was a bad bet. Cortese estimated the company heard variations of no more than 400 times while trying to raise its first institutional round. Some investment firms passed because Peloton planned to open retail stores. Others passed because the business combined hardware, software, and a live broadcast studio, a mix that did not fit any single investment thesis.

Before any of that, Cortese studied philosophy in college, focusing specifically on how humans have organized themselves into communities throughout history. He said that background turned out to be more directly useful to Peloton than any business coursework would have been. As Cortese described it, building Peloton was never just about building a bike or a screen. It was about engineering the conditions for people to come together around a shared experience, the same question philosophers have argued over for centuries, just applied to a subscription product. That framing is worth sitting with, since it reframes Peloton’s leaderboard, its instructor culture, and its member meetups not as marketing tactics but as a deliberate, almost academic exercise in community design.

Before Peloton, Cortese had already lived through a product that failed to become a business. He built P.com, a private social sharing platform, and ran it for two years before recognizing that a great user experience without a viable revenue model does not survive. That lesson shaped how he approached the next venture, prioritizing a subscription business alongside the product itself rather than assuming community alone would generate revenue.

Once Peloton launched, growth compounded quickly. The company sold roughly 5,000 bikes in its first year, then doubled or tripled that figure annually through its September 2019 IPO, which valued the company at 8.1 billion dollars. Cortese credited Peloton’s early community, including a group of members who once organized a trip to Peloton’s New York headquarters and dubbed themselves the Home Rider Invasion, with turning a fitness product into a cultural one.

The Moment Cortese Knew He Had to Leave

Cortese described the moment that led to his 2023 departure. After Peloton brought on a new CEO following John Foley’s exit, board members periodically checked in with him about the leadership team. During one call, Cortese said, he found himself criticizing nearly every senior leader on the team before catching himself and realizing the common denominator in every problem was his own presence. He said that recognition led him to resign the next day, a process that ultimately took close to a year to complete.

How Peloton Co-Founder Tom Cortese Went From Bikes to Sandwiches

Cortese’s the next venture came through a relationship, not a plan. An early Peloton investor introduced him to Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle, who was reworking a struggling restaurant concept called Kernel. That concept has since become Counter Service, a fast-casual sandwich chain Cortese now leads as CEO.

Cortese said Counter Service is built around a straightforward complaint with the sandwich category: most competitors rely on processed cold cuts. Counter Service roasts and slices whole cuts of meat in house and uses a four-ingredient bread with a short shelf life by design. The company currently operates in New York City, with plans to test a second market, potentially Dallas, in 2027.

For Peloton co-founder Tom Cortese, the hardest part wasn’t the sandwiches. He said he could not have made the leap into a new industry without first fully separating from Peloton. He described needing distance from the brand to understand who he was outside of it, a process he called harder than any fundraising challenge he faced in Peloton’s early years.

What a journey!

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