Mark Gaineycurrently serves as the co-founder and chairman of Strava. As an early adopter (I was the 14,443 person to sign up for the service), its my pleasure to share Mark and Michaels story with you today. Strava recently closed Series E with a total funding of $41.85 million in six rounds. However, this is not a sponsored podcast. Fast-forward three decades, and Mark and Michael have been at the center of two of the internets big eras as friends and business partners. Mark Gainey Portola Valley, CA Follow on Strava Followers 2051 Following 323 Yesterday Hello 2023! To get the story behind the story, today I sit down with Mark Gainey and Michael Horvath the dynamic duo co-founderswho gave birth to Strava and continue to guide its ongoing growth and evolution. They were kind enough to let me figure that out. Always eager to test new tech, I signed up immediately, quickly fell in love and have been evangelizing the platform every since. Most of my competition was on my own team, so when youre living that six days a week, and youre literally racing in practice, it makes it pretty easy to go out and win races. Mark holds an AB from Harvard University. Born in Denver, Colorado, but raised in Reno, Nevada. I love to ride my bikes. With Strava, to this day, sometimes Ill hear, Oh, the clever little cycling company. You can go look at our early business plans. How to nurture it. And when it launched, it was only a desktop app. So as early as 1995, we had a plan to figure out a way to bring that boathouse experience to the masses. Cyc: Might Strava add coaching tips and product advice in the future? Free is going to remain and we added 50 plus improvements. I used to remind everybody, Yeah, and what happens to rocket ships once they run out of fuel? The company's application offers the ability to record fitness activity, analyze, share and compare data against themselves, friends, and pros, enabling users to discover, share and plan workouts and training together for better growth and results. 110,482 followers. Was it you and Michael from the beginning? I was the oldest of three. Theyre posting their workouts, and in exchange, were motivating and inspiring them through competitions, analytics, social connections, and so forth. SVOD - Silicon Valley Open Doors Technology Investment Conference 2018, Exclusive: Strava co-founders return to company as CEO and executive chairman, 'It's not frugal, but it's intentional': The cofounder of the fitness app Strava describes the money principles that shape his business and personal finances, Mark Gainey, Strava Co-Founder on Entrepreneurship, Life and Sport, Stravas CEO showed solidarity for immigrants by running a route that spelled Freedom4All, With Its Developers Competition, Strava Finds That Runners Love APIs, Cycling-Centric Fitness App Strava Raises $18.5 Million in Venture Capital Funding, Looking for Motivation? Its funny, full disclosure, I was not applying to Harvard when I was in high school. Spotify. They had a very unique model in that they always found established, entrepreneur-owned, growing, profitable businessesthe exact opposite of what you actually find in Silicon Valley. In some ways I would equate this to authenticity in business. Cyc: What is your favourite piece of Strava art [where a users route draws a picture on a map]? I was there my sophomore year through senior year, and we won the state championship as a team all three years. Its a no brainer. May 11, 2022 hubspot product import electrical engineer house hubspot product import electrical engineer house Youre not going to meet a person whos more humble, who works harder, and he also just understands things about business that, frankly, I dont. There could even be a temporal basis, so maybe what London needs on Monday to Friday is different to what it needs at weekends. I was really lucky that group was willing to come together when it did. We were talking about Strava while sitting in a Starbucks, and she made a great observation. **Note: Marks answers have been edited for brevity and cohesion. When I left Kana in the summer of 2000, we had about 1,200 employees and a market cap north of $10 billion on the NASDAQ. For example, we moved whats called segment leader boards. I had a great coach, a guy named Charlie Butt at Harvard, who now has the whole program. Well give Kudos to each other on a fairly frequent basis. We do want to experiment. My boys met somebody else who happened to be associated with Strava. I cant do that, but its a great way to learn about history through the eyes of an artist at the time. Strava took over again. Then he had a really interesting career where he left his private practice, but went to work at the Veterans Administration, where he became much more of a mentor instructor. I could keep going. Insights Like many of the things born in Silicon Valley, you might say Strava, the favorite app of millions of athletes, is a happy accident. In fact, a key takeaway from the dot-com era, internet 1.0, is from this funny phrase: Oh, yeah, what a rocket ship. I used to remind everybody, Yeah, and what happens to rocket ships once they run out of fuel? We face a constant tension at Strava around this. If someone told me people would be making marriage proposals on Strava when we started Id have said, What are you smoking? And people are saying yes! Our vision was always to support the global community of athletes, regardless of what sport theyre in. Strava was founded in San Francisco in 2009it released Strava Metro in 2014.. My dad was a general surgeon. CYC: How might the data from Strava Metro help to influencecity infrastructure? Best case, Id start something that would sustain my family, which was the mission, just enough to put food on the table and pay the rent. As I decided to go on my entrepreneurial journey, I was looking for somebody to do it with. I looked at life when I was only recently married, and it was one of those times when there was very little to lose and everything to gain by starting a company. If youre clear on who your customer is, and you can understand their needs, even if youre a raw startup, you can be successful. Their story is as interesting as it is instructive. Sign up to the Cyclist newsletter to receive curated emails direct to your inbox. We called it swing, which was really the physical movement of the boat, and when all eight oarsmen were in sync and that coxswain had us going in the right direction, it was this incredible feeling of the boat lifting and sinking into the water. Gainey, who was Strava's initial CEO from 2009 to 2010, reassumed the role. So when the opportunity to host them arose, I jumped on it. Prior to relocating to her native Southern California, Zip was Chief Marketing Officer for Pizza Hut U.S., based in Dallas. Its when our members are excited about their experience on Strava and theyre sharing it with their friends. Its a real investment inside the business, and its a feature unique to Strava. Founded in 2009 by Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey, Strava has become the go-to platform for millions of users around the world. $ % ^ & ). This was 95. Mark Gainey is the co-founder and executive chairman of Strava, a platform where more than 50 million athletes around the world track their workouts and compare their stats. Theres a fine line between perfection and disaster, and you can apply all these things later on.. Hopefully some of that stuffs rubbing off. Weve raised about $70 million today, and if you look at our investors, were really fortunate. Reunited when Michael took a professorship at Stanford, they hatched their first startup. What happened was a very nice coach sent me a handwritten note in the fallit wouldve been fall of 1985. We had a go-to-market strategy that said we were going to focus somewhat maniacally on the cycling community, but dont confuse go-to-market with vision. You and Ive talked about how lonely entrepreneurship can become, so I was looking for a partner, a co-founder. It was very much, Hey, if Strava is the last thing we ever do, that would be great. So it was about creating a foundation where were executing on the vision and hopefully exceeding expectations, but at the same time, making sure weve got a great opportunity to build a lasting company that can have an impact for not just a few years, but decades to come. I have this funny way of keeping all the rejections in my life, whether its venture firms who turn us down, or people who never gave me jobs. How to create it. It was Dads job. Strava Aims to Connect Athletes at All Levels | Xconomy, Cycling and Coding Collide at Performance Tracker Strava. But at its core, its a conversation about community. We admired the likes of companies like Patagonia and Oakley and Virgin, and just these great iconic consumer brands. Its all about the people you bring together. I talked about how much fun I had on the crew team at Harvard. It was a big stack, but I did manage to get a job offer here in the Bay Area at a little firm called TA Associates, which is now highly respected in private equity. They come hard. It was a great job. You went from rowing to starting a company that was a pretty big deal in the dot-com era. In Nevada, the VA is where a lot of the medical students get their training and do their residencies. Strava did that. Train smarter. I had a great coach, a guy named Charlie Butt at Harvard, who now has the whole program. Theoretically, I was pretty confident I could manage my single-parent duties along with the startup. What I saw in my father as a surgeon was somebody who was incredibly dedicated to his patients, to his work. Mark Gainey, Strava. We recently announced a renewed commitment to the fundamental business model around freemium. Welcome Anita Patwardhan Butler! Let me go plan my weekend, and how can Strava be a part of it? And Id be happy to do reads for Strava in the future. Little did they know that their follow up act a passion project born out of a mutual love for fitness would eclipse their first companys success, reshaping the fitness landscape for millions of athletes across the world. Ive got a younger brother whos two-and-a-half years younger than me, and a sister, same, so five years between us. Dear Strava community, If nothing else, 2020 has been a year of regaining perspective. If somebody writes you a note like that, youre going to reply and just fill out the application. I did, and lo and behold, I got in, and visited, and figured, What the heck? Angel, Fund of Funds, Venture Capital), Number of Investments the Individual has participated in, Announced Date: Date when the Investment is announced, Organization Name: Name of the organization that received the investment, Lead Investor: This field indicates whether an investor led/organized the investment, Funding Round: Name of the funding round where the Investment is made, Money Raised: Amount of money raised in Funding Round, Total number of current Jobs the person has, Total number of past Board and Advisor roles the person has, Organization Name: This is the name of the organization, Title At Company: Title of a Person's Job, Start Date: Start date of the Person's Job, CB Rank (Hub): Algorithmic rank assigned to the top 100,000 most active Hubs, Total number of events the individual appeared in, Number of news articles that reference the Person. Pioneering Running Coach Greg McMillan: Extraordinary is in All of Us. Qatar Quest: Two years ago I decided to share my training preparation for the till Swimrun World Championships. Thinking about the people was a huge takeaway as we built Strava. It turned out that the idea was sound, but the technology wasnt there. And how do we live up to that? Mark went into venture capital in Palo Alto. Graphics byJessica Miranda.Theme music byAna Leimma. Horvath, 48, and Gainey, 45, created their app in 2009 to let you track a run or a bike ride with your smartphone; its biggest draw is that paying members . But were not forcing anybody to pay. The Build Cycle Podcast #022 - Strava co-founder Mark Gainey. They were kind enough to let me figure that out. Every day I was losing another CR and I was thinking, Who is this guy? Is your 1986 Ritchey still in the garage? Mark Gainey, Strava cofounder (left), James Quarles, Strava CEO (middle), and Michael Horvath, Strava cofounder (right). He started telling me his story, and to this dayhe doesnt even know thishe is one of my key mentors in life. The company soon enough expanded the focus of its GPS data tracking and social networking platform to also encompass running. MG: From day one we always said were about motivation and entertainment. Hes now a partner at Foundation Capital and has been very successful there. He went off and got his PhD from Northwestern, and ended up here in the Bay Area as a professor of macroeconomics at Stanford. Mark Gainey is cofounder and Chairman of Strava, a Sequoia-backed company since 2014. All rights reserved. While we will always support free, we wanted our community to understand that if youre a subscriber, its just going to get better and better over the coming months and years. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Anybody sitting in this Starbucks could be a potential customer. I mean, the beauty is anybody who would have a need. He wrote this note saying, Hey, we saw your results. Go further. Cyc: Is the Strava office in California full of very active employees? Frankly, just looking at the complexity of leaderboards and how they operate and the costs associated with it, its significant. Yep. It also raised yet another round of funding in October 2014, this time adding $18.5 million to its balance sheet. The one I always recommend is called The Amateurs by David Halberstam. If we could find a cyclist willing to listen to the story and willing to experiment, then we would bring them on. By 2008, he and Gainey were meeting up for brainstorming sessions that would result in the birth of Strava. Otherwise its a really hard slog. We want to support them in their journey wherever they are, whether theyre attempting their first 5K or going for an Olympic gold medal. In order to verify the travellers identity online, they proposed a video identification system that automatically verifies electronic and physical security features of identity documents. Technically, my degree says General Studies. I had enough credits in art historyfine arts is what they call it at Harvard. Cyc: Did the competitive element happen automatically? Rose Ski Resort, and wed ski all winter long. We learned that with our prior company. Their transparency holds me accountable. Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey STRAVA. In 2013, he stepped down from his role but then rejoined the company in 2019. Video, editing byBlake CurtisandMargo Lubin. missionary oblates of mary immaculate belleville, il. When she asked me, Well, whos your customer? I said, See those four guys sitting over there in Lycra with their bikes parked outside the window? So rather than focusing on exits or IPOs and things like that, its kind of back to fundamentals. It was good business. It was super fun. Its as simple as that.. Posted by; Date June 12, 2022; Comments . Net Worth: $2 Million Date of Birth: Jan 18, 1948 (75 years old) Place of Birth: Jackson Gender: Male Height: 6 ft 2 in (1.89 m) Profession: Actor, Comedian, Voice Actor, Stand-up comedian. Reach higher. Prokit co-founder and CEO David Swain (@swain) sat down with Mark at his home to discuss his journey. This year, our community. Michael was class of 88. Founded in 2009, millions of athletes worldwide have joined Strava for the ability to track and share their fitness activities as a community whether they are running, cycling, hiking, racing, skiing, swimming or just working out. Usually, I've got investors, like, show me the addressable market and show me the vision. At one point somebody did the calculationsthe number of hours we put in training for the few minutes that we actually raced in the spring season, because these were 2,000 meters long and six-minute races. Calm:The #1 App for Meditation and Sleep with 100+ guided meditations covering anxiety, focus, stress, sleep, relationships and more. The grit and determination and persistence. As Adam mentioned, I'm the co-founder and executive chairman at Strava and I'm here today to do a couple of things. For a complete list of all RRP sponsors and their respective vanity urls and discount codes,visit my Resources page and click Sponsors. Gainey and Horvath value the user experience on Strava more than anything, and this is a testament as to why most Strava features were previously free. "Back in the late. Strava Metro, the urban data service from the Strava fitness and networking app, has been made free for cities. Grounded and patient, I learned firsthand that Mark is one of those people you instantly want to work with. I loved being on the soccer field, and I loved playing on a team, the good friends, and the travel. This investment - Pre Seed Round - Teamsportz - was valued at $550K. As I was graduating, I had not applied for any jobs. We were generating hundreds of millions in revenue, but yeah, it was also during that periodthe first dot-com boom was pretty unique. . You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings. People get thrown out of the boat, which is called crabs, or you injure your hands on the oar. Dad did his residency in Denver, and I think they fell in love with the Rockies, and so the opportunity to be in the mountains, but closer to family, was compelling. That led to a nine-month perioda little bit of a reckoningbecause it was not at all clear that I was going to be able to come back to rowing. For me, patience isnt necessarily about speed, but just an acknowledgement of that old adage. Have you ever considered Harvard? Horvath currently heads up the company as CEO, while Gainey serves as executive chairman. Yeah, I love this entirely. Get a great workout at home, anytime you want. Stravas co-founder Mark Gainey, set to run cross-country as a freshman at Harvard in 1986, was sidelined by an injury. He had an opportunity to come out with a partner and take over someones practice. Less so, but its not that my parents werent active. Mark Gainey is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Strava. How to capture a niche by going an inch wide and a mile deep. We look at it as: how can we serve you morning, noon and night? 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