Strava Founder: How I Motivated 100 Million People To Stay Active: Michael Horvath
Jun 2, 2022
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Michael Horvath, co-founder of Strava and an entrepreneurial veteran, shares his inspiring journey of resilience and rebuilding. He discusses how his time away from Strava to care for his family shaped his leadership style. The conversation explores the balance between competition and community in motivating individuals to stay active while fostering a supportive environment. Horvath also reflects on how personal loss influences leadership, emphasizing the importance of daily actions, kindness, and shared experiences in achieving fulfillment.
Strava CEO's journey of caregiving and loss emphasizes the importance of self-discovery and kindness in finding purpose.
CEO's reflection on personal growth highlights the quest for connection and potential realization despite barriers.
Balancing personal ambition with teamwork is crucial for achieving shared goals, driving individual and collective growth.
Strava's mobile app boosted community growth, requiring a pivot to enhance user engagement and accessibility.
Deep dives
Pioneering Remote Work Patterns
Strava's CEO reflects on how remote work patterns have become ingrained in our lives, making it challenging to break free. Despite being immersed in tracking activities through devices like Strava and converting them into reports, the CEO questions the pursuit of excellence and the acceptance of not always achieving the top position, emphasizing the importance of the journey.
Personal Identity and Resilience
Facing his wife's terminal illness, the CEO navigates the complexities of caregiving and loss. Bereft after her passing, he confronts the journey of self-discovery and redefinition, recognizing that defining oneself takes time and effort. Prioritizing kindness in daily interactions forms the essence of finding purpose and meaning in life.
Origin of Potential and Belonging
Growing up as the youngest in a geographically separated family, the CEO reflects on the drive to reunite and the quest for connection and belonging. Encountering hurdles like language barriers in a new country, the essence of realizing personal potential emerges as a universal belief driving individual and collective growth.
Balancing Community and Commitment
Striving for excellence while embracing balance and commitment, the CEO shares insights on fostering teamwork. Highlighting the importance of individual striving within a collective context, the balance between personal ambition and team contribution emerges as a key element in achieving shared goals.
Navigating Remote Work Challenges
Amidst the shift to remote work, Strava's approach to encouraging office attendance while valuing flexibility reveals the evolving dynamics of workplace culture. Balancing employee preferences with organizational needs, the CEO delves into the delicate balance between remote work accommodations and fostering in-person camaraderie for enhanced productivity and team cohesion.
Community Growth Through Mobile App Launch
Launching a mobile app significantly increased community growth, with a daily addition of ten thousand new users compared to the previous rate of a hundred weekly. The app's easy accessibility and zero cost entry point attracted users through the app store, facilitating community expansion beyond financial limitations. However, initial missteps in building the app's experience required a pivot to a fully mobile platform to enhance user engagement and retention.
Personal Life Balancing Act Amidst Company Growth and Personal Loss
Balancing personal life with scaling the business posed challenges, particularly as the company expanded to two coasts and necessitated frequent travel. Amidst company growth and surpassing a million community members, personal tragedy struck as the speaker's wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Juggling company responsibilities with caregiving, the speaker ultimately stepped down to prioritize family, learning profound lessons on finding meaning in life's challenges and the importance of relationships.
Michael Horvath is the co-founder of Strava, the app to track and improve peoples fitness that’s used by millions of people worldwide. It’s his second business success, after he built a thriving online business in the 1990s.
But it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Michael. Initially quitting his first business, he spent several years as a family man before boredom launched him into starting his second. What he didn’t appreciate is that his calling as a family man would come back for him in a way he could never have imagined. Michael took 5 years off from Strava to care for his wife until her tragic death, and then care for his children in the aftermath of that.
When he returned to a struggling Strava as CEO in 2020, he had to build it again from the ground up. It was something he was ready equipped for, because it’s something he’s had to do many times before.
