Michael Horvath
Co-Founder & Board Member, Strava. On 1 show, 2 appearances, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveacademicLinkedIn ↗strava.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Michael Horvath is the co-founder and former CEO of Strava, and previously co-founded enterprise software firm Kana Communications. Before entering technology entrepreneurship, he received a PhD in economics from Northwestern University and taught economics at Stanford University and Dartmouth College.
1shows
2appearances
20statements
5resolved
5supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
3said about them ↓ Everything Michael Horvath said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Strava moved free features to a paywall to ensure long-term sustainability
“Would we rebalance the equation between the free and the paid by moving some things from the free side to the paid side? Yes. We would do that in the name of building Strava to be sustainable, building it so that we can be here for the next hundred years.”
Founders do not need upfront answers to start building products
“You don't have to figure out all the answers to how you're going to build something. You have to start with something that gets you to the next challenge to solve.”
Founders should separate cleanly once they lack an active operational role
“It's almost like you're, you do have a, you have a better quality, and the company has a better quality of existence if you really separate as much as possible at some level when you don't have a role to play anymore.”
Strava's earliest business plans explicitly rejected advertising models
“I do remember the earliest business plans had the concept of sponsorship, but We said no advertising.”
Strava never sells user data or treats users as the product
“And if we're going to use data for any purpose, it's got to be anonymized and aggregated and not, we never sell anyone's private information. We never give away anyone as the product.”
Strava made its Flyby feature opt-in to protect user location data
“And that's why, for example, making flybys something that you have to opt into was really important to us so that someone who joined, who may not even understand what that feature means, wouldn't inadvertently be sharing information that they didn't want to.”
Strava's monthly user signups surged from 1 million to 3 million
“We went from adding about a million new athletes to the platform every month to, at some points, three million a month, and it's settled down to about two million a month now.”
Kana Communications built its first prototype using FileMaker Pro templates
“We took an off-the-shelf software called FileMaker Pro, found a, someone who knew how to create custom templates for it, and asked them to basically build what Mark just described, that, that placemat sketch from the sixteen-year-old turned into a FileMaker Pr…”
Davey Kitchell prototyped the Strava segment leaderboard by summer 2008
“What he comes up with by the summer of 2008, spring of 2008, is what we now know as the Strava Segment Leaderboard.”
Strava did not have a viable mobile app until 2012
“It wasn't until the, 2012, until we really had a viable mobile app into the market. We launched something in 2011 that, that didn't work, but it took us a while to shift off of that.”
Early cyclists resented Strava for allocating product resources to running
“They were jealous that we were spending any time devoted to a sport that they didn't love.”
Strava doubled its headcount to nearly 350 employees during the pandemic
“We're close to 350. We entered the pandemic with about a 180. So we've almost doubled since then.”
Strava announced collaborative group challenges launching by mid-2021
“We're building a capability for you to challenge a few of your friends, and it could be collaborate with a few of your friends to accomplish a goal together. But that we can bring this so that you can decide what you want, what you find would be motivating for…”
Building an interactive virtual locker room was technically impossible in 1995
“Turns out it wasn't. That's what we found out when we went out to talk to some people who actually knew how to build things on the internet or build things out of software.”
DFJ led Kana Communications' $700,000 Series A round in 1996
“Our series A led by Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson, DFJ. We closed that round in, I believe it was 1996, and 700,000 dollars.”
Strava did not expand beyond cycling in earnest until 2012
“And some of the biggest chant, you know, say the discussions we had was when do we start expanding into other sports? And we didn't really do it in earnest until 2012.”
Garmin GPS devices were the only compatible hardware at Strava's launch
“You had to have a Garmin GPS device. That was the only device that would work with Strava in those early days.”
Horvath stepped down as CEO in 2013 after his wife's cancer diagnosis
“So he steps in in December because in September of that year, a few months prior, my wife, Anna, had been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.”
The other half of the tape: Michael Horvath's own voice is left out of every number here. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Michael Horvath, by other people (3)
Strava founders negotiated with Costco to source Garmins for early users
“There was a whole period of time where Michael and I were negotiating with the likes of Costco and others, just literally trying to buy Garmins so that we could Either sell them or give them away to friends so that we could get people onto the platform.”
Gainey handed the Strava CEO role to Horvath in 2010
“And so by early 2010, it was, hey, Michael, I really need you to run this.”
Strava was modeled on Patagonia and Virgin rather than tech peers
“We made a list of if we had been founders of XYZ company, what would it have been? And it was telling because It wasn't a bunch of Silicon Valley companies. I don't think there was, I mean, maybe, maybe we put Apple on there. I can't remember, but otherwise it…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Michael's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-Founder & Board Member, Strava | 2 +1 | 20 | 100% 5/5 | full record on How I Built This → |