Strava's Social Media
Who do you hire to build a social media company for athletes?
This time, It’s Personnel…
It’s Personnel dissects how noteworthy companies and competitors have staffed up on their way to dominance (or dismay).
Up this week: Strava.
I may be biased (I’ve been on Strava since 2011), but Strava is the best social media.
This morning, on my pre-work ride, I saw the 8-10 "regulars" and ~50 new faces – many of whom I assume are on day 3 of their New Year's exercise kick.
I wondered, “Are these new faces on Strava?”
Since I joined in 2011, Strava has become social media for 135M+ athletes, allowing people to track and share how they exercise, build communities, and challenge themselves and friends (or foes).
So... how do you build a social media app?
Hire social media pros
All-in-all, ~11% of current and former Strava employees brought experience from Meta, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Snap, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Discord, or Twitch to their time at Strava. Clearly, the company is very intentional about hiring people who have "been there, done that."
Strava’s Social Media Alumni by Function
Broken down further, what do current Strava employees who are social media alumni do?
While the volume of product and GTM hires is par for the course, the volume of legal hires is a bit surprising. This offers some insight into the challenges that social media companies face around privacy, trust, safety, and data (maybe I’ll look at TikTok’s legal team next).
Since its inception, Strava has hired almost 100 people who helped build other great social media apps, including several new hires who joined the Strava team in 2024:
New-in-2024 CEO, Michael Martin, came from Youtube
General Counsel, Daniel Li, was the first product counsel at Facebook
Brand Marketing Exec, Sofia Morales, spent 4 years at Facebook
Director of Retention, Meghan Ghiasi, came from Discord
Machine Learning Engineer, Leo Neat, spent 8 years at Google and YouTube
Now... the real question for people who like to joke about Strava becoming a dating app... how many people has Strava hired from the likes of Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, etc.?
Asking for a friend of course 😎
The companies up next
Whether you’re looking for competitive intel, data to support investment theses, or just want to see hot companies and industry titans put head-to-head, drop a comment below with the company or battle deep dives you want to see.
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