Michael Horvath: the Strava co-founder who’s pacing himself

theguardian.com:

Michael Horvath took up hiking and yoga during the pandemic when his usual cycle to work was off limits. Like almost 100 million others in nearly 300 countries he was able to track his chosen activities on Strava – the app for sporty types he co-founded 13 years ago.

Conceived as a “virtual locker room” through which cyclists could compete against their mates, the app boomed during the pandemic as millions of people looked at ways to get active and join online clubs that would inspire them to keep going.

At the peak in April and May 2020, the app saw 3 million people a month joining – triple its previous level. That has since slipped back to 2 million a month, but Horvath believes the app could reach 1 billion users within a decade.

On the horizon now is a move to get the business on stock market leaderboards, as the pandemic, and now a fuel crisis, drive a permanent shift towards physically active travel.

In the UK, already 17% of the adult population is on the platform, or more than 9 million people. “What the pandemic did in a lot of ways has accelerated what would have happened already but forced it to happen sooner and gave us the space to think about it. It is happening in the next couple of years instead of 10 years from now,” says Horvath.

He wants Strava to be a tool to help continue to drive that change, with data from its cyclists and walkers’ activities used to help design and validate rejigs of town and city centres.

Since 2020, the app has been making its data available free to local authorities and public bodies, including Transport for London, Transport for Greater Manchester and Active Travel England; now more than 1,500 such bodies are using it, compared with just 50 pre-pandemic.

Horvath says Strava decided