Strava raises $110M, growth rate of 2M new users per month in 2020 (opens in new tab)

I know a ton of people using Strava. They use it entirely for socializing runs/rides/swims. Friendly pressure, kudos, complaints about the humidity, etc. Literally none of them pay attention to the 'KOM/QOM' more than a 'haha, check that out' bit. It's a hardware vendor neutral (looking at you GarminConnect) way of socializing with fellow athletes, and is super popular for that.

The leaderboard aspects of Strava are the worst part. I like it as a personal training log, and as a way to keep up with friends who are also being fit. The social aspects are really nice, as it's fun to be asked about your run through X over the weekend, or to know who to ask about running routes in a certain park.

It's also a nice nudge to go work out. "I don't have anything on Strava yet this week, I should go for a bike ride over lunch today" is really helpful mentally.

> As a mountain biker Strava feels just silly.

And this remark feels unconstructive.

As a touring cyclist I absolutely love Strava. The tracking and logging is excellent, the community aspects are fun, and overall I find the product very easy to use.

Do I think it's worth a 100M investment? I'm not sure. I wouldn't have expected Peloton or Mirror to exist. But there's clearly a demand for social fitness products and who am I to argue against the market?

It blows my mind that after a decade of user data, they still can't automatically detect when someone accidentally uploads a bike ride as a run activity. Like yea, kudo phil for knocking out those... 3 minute miles for two hours. \rant

I love it for both mountain and road cycling. I pay for it, to use its modeling to help avoid over training. I like the social aspects of it. I learn new routes by following people, including the local pros. It's a treat when people write entertaining ride reports.

It's hard to imagine that GPS errors help cheating, unless you're paying attention to really tiny segments. I'm interested only in segments that are at least 5 minutes, but normally 20 to 40 minutes. It would be really hard to reliably cheat to your followers who get to see how you grow over time and gain an understanding of the performances you can deliver. And if you track heart rate, cadence, and power, it becomes really easy to see what is legit. I have power meters on my mountain and road bikes.

I find the discovery features frustrating. They focus on Segments of runs rather than complete routes. Compare to AllTrails for best in class IMHO.

> I wouldn't be surprised if one only can make marginal gains with those 110M

Strava is a social network. Like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit. The day you have hundred of millions of users you stop the bullshit with premium features and you start putting ads and you make money. I'm not worried for them at all

I don't want to compare my performance against other people, I want to compare with my former self.

Yes, Strava's main mistake IMO was not differentiating enough between free and premium versions. I am a long time subscriber because I like the social aspects of Strava but I almost never use the premium features. The basic free plan does almost all of what I need.

The most annoying part of Strava's changes this year was removing access to segment leaderboards from their API (https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderbo...). This broke a bunch of 3rd party apps, including some that seem completely innocuous. For instance, I used an app that displayed a list of segments for mountain passes in the Alps and the number of times each had been crossed so far this year. The goal of this was to help people figure out when it was possible to cross a pass (which might be well before the road is officially open), but now that's broken.

I personally didn't like this change because it removed the tiered nature of the paid platform. Previously, you could mix and match 3 feature packs, at $2/month each. Now, they've combined it into $5/month flat, regardless of how many features you use.

This may be the right answer for them (chasing the premium competitive market and all that, and maybe less tech debt with fewer tiers), but it caused me to drop my subscription. As a "casual" cyclist, I was willing to pay $2/month, but not $5/month, for the value I got out of the service.

> Predictably, not many people subscribed.

How do you know this? I don't believe I've ever seen them (or anyone else) publish actual subscription numbers... closest thing I've seen is some statistical analysis done by a VC way back in 2015.

I don’t see the premium offerings as worth the cost for most casual athletes. I think they’d do better with advertising and corporate tie ins like the challenges.

Yeah my GPS watch syncs to several apps including Strava because my friends use it, but Smashrun is so much more interesting and valuable for understanding trends and patterns in my fitness. I had a premium Strava subscription for a while, but canceled it last year in favor of Smashrun.

I used to race road bikes and segments were a great way to compete during training rides and the off-season. I haven't raced in years, but it was a lot of fun trying to best your teammates time, or someone you race against.

Now I mostly run and it's far less interesting. I mostly just use it to log my workouts. I love Strava, though, and appreciate the platform they created and opened up for free. I think it's a great product.