If I were the Product Manager: Strava Groups

If you poll any competitive runner, cyclist, or other endurance sport athlete, chances are they have heard of or are using an app called Strava. The app fosters a community for athletes through a feed of activities. Each athlete is able to follow friends, teammates, or pro athletes and share “kudos” or comments once they’ve completed a workout. In addition to being a watering hole for the endurance sports community, Strava offers premium features that provide training and performance insights, suggest routes with the help of activity data, and fosters competition against other members through segment KOM/QOMs (King/Queen of the “Mountain”) and local legend challenges. With this unique offering of free and premium features, it is no surprise that the app is the #4 Free Health & Fitness app in the Apple App Store. As a runner and longtime Strava Premium user, I’ve always admired the company’s ability to foster community and keep me coming back to the app for personal performance insights and to see how I stack up against other athletes on my favorite segments.

With all of that being said, Strava has continuously left me wanting more in one of its key sections of the app. Groups.

After receiving a facelift and marketing push with the help of some brands like Nike Running earlier this year, Groups has clearly been identified by the company as a growth opportunity and an area to offer more value to users across the board. Despite this attention, I believe Strava has fallen short of creating an experience that improves the Groups interface enough to foster and grow the endurance sports community in a new way.

Now, I don’t just want to stand up on an internet soapbox and spew complaints about the awesome app (I really do love it) into the bottomless pit of the internet. So, I want to take time to approach this from a Product Manager lens and offer up a solution. Before providing a solution, I want to start by providing context to endurance sports groups in the US based on interviews, surveys, data, and observations.

Endurance Sports Groups

Groups, Clubs, and Teams in the US

Among the endurance sports organizations in the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (listed below), there are upwards of 6,800 clubs with more than 600,000 dedicated athletes registered. These groups can play a vital part in a dedicated athlete’s life. They can be competitive teams sponsored by major brands and servicing Olympic-level athletes, local clubs fostering social connections, community, and accountability amongst athletes, or anything in between.

According to survey results, a significant 72% of committed athletes actively participate in at least one endurance sports group. This translates to an estimated 430,000 dedicated athletes spread across approximately 6,800 groups across the United States, resulting in an impressive ratio of 63 athletes per group. With so many athletes involved per group, leaders are confronted with the task of effectively organizing and communicating with their teams.

Running (yes, pun intended) a Club

Leading a run club comes with its fair share of challenges, as I learned from interviews with run club leaders in Boston and New York City. Among the myriad responsibilities they face, three major time-consuming tasks stand out. Firstly, roster management proves to be a demanding task, involving processing dues, maintaining an up-to-date membership list, and keeping tabs on each member's financial status. Secondly, event management is another significant challenge, encompassing the creation of club and partnership events, scheduling practices and board meetings, and disseminating information about upcoming races and events. Lastly, social media marketing adds to the burden, requiring leaders to maintain an active online presence, engage with club members, and promote the club's activities effectively. These challenges often necessitate leaders to balance their run club duties with their day jobs and enlist the support of a dedicated board and technology tools to streamline administrative processes and keep their clubs thriving.

Technology plays a pivotal role in addressing the multifaceted challenges faced by run club leaders. Club management tools like Meetup, Geneva, and Heylo offer invaluable solutions for streamlining administrative tasks. These platforms simplify roster management by automating the collection of dues, maintaining an organized membership database, and providing insights into each member's financial status. Additionally, they facilitate event management by enabling leaders to effortlessly create and promote club events, share schedules, and send out announcements, fostering efficient communication with members. Moreover, these platforms enhance social media marketing efforts by integrating seamlessly with various social networks, allowing clubs to engage with a broader audience and market their activities more effectively. By harnessing the power of these technological tools, run club leaders can significantly reduce the time and effort required for administrative work, freeing up valuable resources to focus on the club's core mission of fostering a vibrant running community.

An Athlete's Experience

For athletes seeking to dive into a thriving and dynamic community, the adventure usually kicks off with the quest to find the perfect athletic group. Discovering and joining such groups mark a crucial milestone in an athlete's pursuit of their passion. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to this journey.

According to survey results, a whopping 77% of athletes rely on the magic of word-of-mouth recommendations. Advice from friends, colleagues, or fellow enthusiasts carries considerable weight in steering athletes toward the most compatible groups. Personal endorsements bring a sense of trust and reliability to the table, which explains their popularity. Around half of the respondents mentioned stumbling upon athletic groups through the ever-expansive realm of social media. Platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook act as virtual hotspots where athletes connect with kindred spirits and explore groups that resonate with their interests. Social media doesn't just help athletes unearth these groups; it offers a sneak peek into their activities and dynamics. It's worth noting that the journey to discovering the ideal athletic group is as diverse as the groups themselves. Athletes might mix and match these methods or venture down other paths depending on their unique circumstances and interests.

Once athletes have found the perfect group to join, active participation becomes the next exciting chapter in their athletic journey. Participation involves more than just taking part in group activities; it's about nurturing a sense of community and camaraderie. Many athletes turn to the group’s management tools like Geneva, Meetup, and Heylo to keep the fires of connection burning with their chosen athletic clans. These platforms double as virtual hangouts where athletes can chat about upcoming events, celebrate their triumphs, and provide a helping hand to their comrades. Beyond the structured events, athletes often connect on a more personal level through additional text, iMessage, or WhatsApp groups. These channels grease the wheels of communication and coordination among members, whether it's for spontaneous gatherings, training sessions, or just some good old-fashioned socializing beyond the regular group activities. The bonds formed through these interactions often transcend the realm of athletics, nurturing enduring friendships.

In essence, athletic groups provide not only a platform for shared activities but also a sense of belonging and support for athletes. Whether through club management tools or informal digital communication, athletes use various means to stay connected with their peers, share their passion, and enhance their overall experience within a group.

So... What's the problem?

While club management tools like Meetup, Heylo, and Geneva have certainly played a significant role in aiding athletes with their group activities, they do have their fair share of limitations when it comes to cultivating a vibrant and dynamic community. These tools tend to adopt a generic approach, trying to cater to a wide array of groups, ranging from professional ones like "Remote Coworkers" to more community-oriented ones like "Parents of Littles." This one-size-fits-all strategy can pose a real challenge for athletes looking to pinpoint groups that perfectly match their interests, objectives, and desired level of competitiveness. Furthermore, the existing solutions primarily concentrate on group management and coordination, overlooking the vital task of helping users discover fresh and exciting groups to become a part of. Athletes often resort to word-of-mouth recommendations or turn to social media platforms to fill this void, which, let's face it, doesn't always lead to the most fruitful results.

Why Strava is the Solution

Strava, without a doubt, emerges as the perfect contender to tackle these challenges head-on and take the group experience for endurance athletes to the next level. Strava boasts a colossal and remarkably engaged community of athletes, with a staggering 100 million users worldwide. Its standing as the #4 free app on the Apple App Store is a testament to its immense popularity and widespread use. With such an expansive user base, Strava possesses the potential to unite athletes with a diverse spectrum of groups and kindred spirits, making it an absolute treasure trove for group discovery. The platform already plays a pivotal role in an athlete's journey. Users turn to the app for tracking and sharing their workouts, competing on segments, and dissecting performance metrics. By seamlessly integrating group discovery and management features into the existing Strava platform, athletes can effortlessly transition from individual pursuits to group engagement within a single app. Strava's "Groups" feature, while already in existence, can become a solid foundation for creating a vibrant group experience if it receives the enhancements and refinements it deserves. Leveraging this infrastructure allows Strava to harness its current user base and ecosystem while equipping itself with new tools and capabilities tailored to the specific needs of athletes and group organizers.

Looking beyond the realm of troubleshooting and delivering an improved group experience, Strava stands to reap a host of additional benefits by bolstering its group-related features. By offering a more captivating group experience, Strava can anticipate significant improvements in critical metrics like Daily Active Users (DAU), Session Duration, and Churn Rate. Elevated group engagement can translate to more frequent and longer app usage, thereby enhancing overall user satisfaction and retention rates. A robust group feature can also serve as a catalyst for elevating Strava's brand recognition within the endurance sports community. This heightened visibility has the potential to yield a higher conversion rate from free to premium users, as athletes come to recognize the added value of premium features.

In closing, Strava's exceptional position as a platform with a vast user base, established touchpoints throughout an athlete's journey, and a sturdy foundation in the form of its "Groups" feature makes it exceptionally well-suited to confront the challenges of group discovery and management within the endurance sports community. By enhancing this facet of the app, Strava not only stands to enrich the user experience but also stands to gain a multitude of strategic advantages, solidifying its position as a preeminent leader in the fitness and endurance sports app market.

Strava Group Recommendations

Before diving in, it's important to note that these recommendations are coming from my own experience with the app. I am not familiar with specific dependencies and any costs (time & $) associated with the development, capacity, testing, and implementation of these enhancements.

Home Screen

Now, the first task to improve the Group’s user experience is to make individual groups more accessible. At the moment, the user’s journey requires them to tap and then scroll through a list of groups (depending on the number of groups they currently belong to) before accessing a targeted group. The initial goal is to make individual groups fewer clicks away, so group leaders and athletes need to be able to quickly toggle to specific groups they participate in. In order to accomplish this, I removed the “Record” button from the tab bar and placed it in the “Add” container at the top of the feed. The record button was chosen to be moved further away from the users because of the increase in compatible and wearable devices to track and upload activities to the platform. Additionally, the buttons to create a new Post and add Photos are duplicative (before making a final decision, I’d like to know the percentage of weekly activities uploaded using the feature and YoY change).

Success Metric(s):

• Weekly Total Activities Logged with “Record” Button

User Journey

The other change made to the main landing page was adding a bento menu. This menu will aggregate Strava’s different product features on Strava, while also allowing users to create bookmarks for the groups they are actively involved in. Despite the one additional step a user is required to complete when they favorite a group in this new format, the process saves the user time by the second time they access the landing page.

Success Metric(s):

Among Active “Groups” Users

• Total Favorited Groups
• Avg Favorited Groups per user

Groups Interface

While getting users to access groups is the first challenge, the more difficult one is keeping group admins and members coming back to and engaging with their groups. My proposed format moves away from a feed-driven landing page and provides users with a snapshot of upcoming events, photos, activities, and chat rooms. This way, groups can build their communities around what's coming up and what's buzzing, rather than being confined to handing out kudos and comments on a club’s feed. In order to ensure this is the right direction to head in, it would be great to run an A/B test and track how much time users spend in the new Groups interface vs. the old.

Success Metric(s):

• Daily, Weekly, & Monthly Active Group Users (Total & Percentage of Active Users)
• % of New Users à Active Group Users
• Average Session Length
• % of Admin New Activity (Room Thread or New Event)
• % of Active Group Users with push notifications for a Group
• Net Promoter Score

Messaging

The final way to improve the Strava Groups experience is to create 1:1 and 1:Many messaging channels to foster the informal side of endurance sports groups. Adding messaging functionality will give users the ability to connect on a more personal level and cut down on user dropoff to other messaging platforms like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Instagram. Now, athletes will be able to complete tasks like planning meetups outside of organized group runs, discussing upcoming events or activities hosted by the group, or just talking about whatever they like. In order to create a 1:1 or a group message and ensure a safe environment, users will be able to message any user they are connected with or are already in a group with.

Success Metric(s):

• New 1:1 Conversations
• New 1:Many Conversation
• Avg weekly messages per 1:1 Conversation
• Avg weekly messages per 1:Many Conversation
• % of Active Messaging Users among Active Users

Conclusion

In summary, the proposed enhancements to Strava Groups represent a strategic approach to elevate the user experience for endurance sports athletes. By optimizing the accessibility of individual groups, introducing a bento menu for quick access, and relocating the "Record" button to align with evolving activity tracking trends, we aim to reduce friction and increase user engagement.

Furthermore, the redesigned landing page format, emphasizing upcoming events, photos, activities, and chat rooms, shifts the focus from mere feed interactions to community-building through shared interests and scheduled activities. This shift encourages deeper engagement and fosters a sense of belonging among group members.

The addition of 1:1 and 1:Many messaging channels within the Strava platform empowers athletes to connect personally, plan meetups, discuss group-related events, and engage in meaningful conversations. This feature not only enhances user interaction but also reduces the need to migrate to external messaging platforms, keeping users within the Strava ecosystem.

A comprehensive set of success metrics has been identified to measure the impact of these changes, aligning with the objectives of improved user engagement, retention, and overall satisfaction. Ultimately, this reinforces Strava's product stickiness and brand resonance with the intent to convert more premium users as it continues to provide greater value to the endurance athlete.

These recommendations are rooted in the goal of creating a seamless, engaging, and community-driven experience for Strava's users. I appreciate your time in reviewing this report, and I welcome your valuable input and feedback on the proposed enhancements and any alternative approaches that may better serve the Strava user base.