Why can’t Strava do this?

The surprising solutions to Strava’s problems.

00:00 Strava's identity crisis
00:52 Disclaimer
01:05 Background on Strava
01:42 Strava feature overview
03:05 Problem 1: Quality and growing pains
04:44 Problem 2: Focussing on the wrong user persona
06:59 Problem 3: Stagnant community
08:14 Problem 4: Playing the wrong game for user engagement
09:42 Problem 5: No recommendations
11:33 Vision for Strava

Sources:
Strava Product Strategy Release 2023:

#strava #stravacycling #apps #productmanagement #productmanagers #fitness #fitnessmotivation

[Nicoya]

Here's a fun feature idea: making event recommendations based on your estimated fitness. Imagine seeing a card in your feed that's like "Registration has just opened for the Race Around The Loop, last year athletes similar to you finished in the top 20." or "A group ride is rolling out tomorrow near you, and they're looking for new members. Your fitness is in the 75th percentile of the usual participants."

[semidemiurge]

They should hire you as all of these suggestions are spot-on and needed.

[rouxenophobe]

OMG where to start?! Your video is spot on. In the *original* community forum there were thousands of suggestions for what users wanted. They mostly wanted bug fixes and simple analytics to be implemented, there was also so many suggestions for new and fun features. The biggest criticism was that year on year none of these features were being implemented, and features that people didn't want (e.g., Local Legend) were. That was in the ORIGINAL user community forum. What did Strava do? They DELETED this forum as they didn't like the negative feedback and made a new moderated forum where only approved posts praising the great new Local Legend's feature were allowed. I am a paid subscriber, right now my biggest bug bear (apart from the historic shared KOM's but no badge bug) is the terrible analytics and graphs. The scale on the graphs is abysmal and when analysing the graph the "scrollable flag" blocks my view of the profile I'm looking at, grrr! For me the killer feature would be a "what segments do I have in common with my buddy" comparator, and gaming of this. I will not be renewing my subscription.

[johnstarky]

Spot on. I’m a long-term PAID Strava user, and mostly cycling like you. I hope Strava has seen this and is opening a senior planning or product management role for you!!!

[goepfert]

You put in words my grievances with Strava better than I could formulate in my head.
It is time for Strava "power users" to speak about the platform issues!
There is no one speaking out about this on the social media, congrats!

[mathish.]

Quality content right here. There are definitely huge opportunities for Strava but some basic features need to be fixed/added first.

[viniciuslippel]

I'm just a casual cyclist, and Strava always seemed like the spot for super competitive folks. I'm not big on the whole competition vibe – I'm more into cruising around, enjoying myself, and stumbling upon cool new spots. Honestly, I haven't really used it much, except to check out the Strava Heatmap. But if Strava was more focused in finding and suggesting new routes and places, I'd totally be down to throw some cash in a subscription.

[iecrime]

Great first video! Been a strava user for about a year now. Biking and fitness for 40 years. Many things to like about strava but I mainly use it for the social media aspect. Strava helped me connect with hundreds of other cycling enthusiasts in my area and this has enriched my life.However, I use both strava and garmin to track my rides/physical activity. I was using only garmin for years to track my activities (and still do) but garmin doesn't have the same enjoyable community feel to it.

[jimglenwright]

Completely agree with your Strava assessment. I am a 60+ year old runner that cancelled my Strava subscription almost a year ago. The service didn’t give me anything different than my Polar (watch) application, so I just didn’t see any benefit in the subscription. The greatest benefits the application could have provided were a list of route segments in my (or identified) area based on defined parameters such as distance and terrain (flat, hill, trail, etc), as wall as, as you mentioned, other runners in my area of similar goals and pace. I am a 60+ year old runner that runs at a 9:30-10:00 min per mile pace (longer for zone 2), but most runners found on Strava are spread out over the globe and are 20-30 something that run at a 7:00 min pace. No one that even comes close to me physically or goal wise.

[manueldeubler]

So many good facts here. Strava didn't evolve from the competitive KOM hunting platform it once started out as. KOM hunting now is not feasible for the average cyclist and the training analysis features are already covered by other apps that are better suited for coaching interactions. I would really like to see Strava becoming more of a social media platform where you can interact with people and discover the cycling community around your area. A global group ride calendar would be amazing. I would also appreciate a more content oriented approach, not just a platform were you post your winter base training.

[AndrewBlucher]

Hi Julia. Interesting suggestions. Several of them would require careful thought about how to manage privacy.
Being a private company makes it hard to know what their goals are. It has been claimed in recent years that it doesn't run at a profit; if that is true then I imagine the owners take home significant pay packets. One thing that is for sure is that there is some serious leading edge IT going on there.
You mention finding riding buddies. It's not hard. Join clubs, watch the feed, pick out people who might be compatible, send them kudos and maybe a message on the their activity. You can also search for people in your area. I did this when I moved house a few years back. In no time I had a dozen people I could ride with. Some people will ignore your contact and that's OK.
Nice first vid.
Regards, Andy

[traviswoyen]

Good video. Issues I've had include a trend toward equating quantitative increase with improvement with the basic workout analysis. So, for example, let's say I naturally tend toward pushing high heart rate, pushing speed, and increasing mileage - out of the box, Strava is my main champion. If I find out that I need to do more low HR training, Strava naturally says that I'm training less, therefore fitness is dropping, etc. Now, it could be that there's a way to set different goal criteria that I'm not aware of, but it's not exactly easy to find. Seeing group challenges on mobile but not on web isn't ideal. Segment creators should be able to permanently filter KOMs for the segments they manage, so winter trails and MTB trails don't wind up with an eternal unbeatable "NecroKOM" from one riding season where the trail was slightly different. Really, filtering data should be about the lowest hanging fruit.

[thermitebanana]

The free version of Strava is awesome and I feel bad that I've never given them money, but I don't see myself wanting to use any more features

[DarrylCollins]

Great analysis and suggestions, thanks. I would love for Strava to improve club management. For instance almost everyone I cycle with is a Strava member and member of a club, yet we all mostly use Facebook Groups to chat and organise our cycling lives. The existing club management and chat/forum functions are completely lacklustre.

[seanwood]

I’ve been a paid subscriber of Strava since 2011 and I can feel a LOT of the issues you have described. The points you have made are excellent and I’m hoping Strava is listening. Thanks for putting in all the work to make this.

[collectivesartori]

All obvs on point. Kudos. Strava should employ you

[macster]

True Words. Good analysis! As a long time Strava User I completely agree with you. A key feature, which I would consider would be a reliable update of my FTP. Considering the potential from machine learning - as used by Trainerroad- would be good. I am not the only one, who would like to avoid stressfull FTP-tests.

[markmark]

The area discussed around 7:30 in the above video is spot on what Strava should improve on! Just being able to privately exchange phone numbers with another athlete (not publicly) would be huge! What would also be nice is if they had a platform to provide input to the Strava creators. It is virtually impossible to give input to them. I once had a list of about 30 suggestions (not sure where they are now - Lol) but there is no way to provide this to them. It is very frustrating. They also should have separate leaderboards for different bikes imo. A recumbent sport bike for instance shouldn't be allowed to compete on the regular road bike leaderboard. Also, they should do a better job at flagging rides that are definitely unintended recordings from a car after a ride was complete and the user did not end the Strava recording. This happens way too often and unless another user points it out it goes unfixed on the leaderboard. I think this focus on dozens and dozens of other activities is just nonsense and will cause them to stray from what should be their core focus. What they really should do is have a separate Strava app for just the main 3 triathlon activities of cycling, running and swimming. If they want to include other activities make that an entirely different app called Strava Cross Training or something to separate it.

[zerocharlie]

First video I have seen on your channel, and it’s solid. Totally agree. I was a paying user (even stomached the price increase), but ultimately cancelled as it’s just not worth it.

As others have said, making event recommendations would be awesome. Strava should make it easy for events to post an upcoming event and then make a suggestion to users who ride/run that area that an event is happening. How many times have we all seen signs saying “this road closed tomorrow for a race” and we are like “errr, wish I would have known - I’d have joined”.

If Strava is listening, it would also be great if “event recommendations” could also be turned off. Some people love being in their circle and don’t always want an ad.

But I think it would be good for riders, good for Strava (maybe collect a little ad money), and great for the event. Hard to see any losers with that plan.

[nubiaskax]

Julia that was an outstanding video. Thanks you. I myself am on the continual search for the useful and the free, not cheap but free. Money inevitably gets in the way.