Strava Co-Founder and CEO Michael Horvath to Step Down as CEO

• Michael Horvath, founder and CEO of Strava a fitness tracking app company has announced his stepping down from the company. 
• He shall continue to be CEO until Strava finds a new one. 
• Strava laid off 15% of the staff in December and has also apologised to the users facing issues with the app.

Strava is a fitness-tracking app founded in 2009 by Michael Horvath, also the CEO of Strava. Michael founded the app with his Harvard teammate Mark Gainey. 

Michael has announced that he is quitting and confirmed the same in a blog post on the company’s website which is based in San Francisco. He further assured that he will continue to be CEO until a replacement is found and hired and shall still continue to be a board member after that.

During the years of pandemic runners and cyclists and other exercise enthusiasts are using apps and have tracked their workout logs and share kudos with their friends. Strava had crossed 100 million users over the first two years of the pandemic.

Post-pandemic as with many other tech companies even Strava has been hit by a patchy rock and the company has laid off almost 15% of its staff in December. The company was turbocharged during the pandemic. They have cut up to 40 jobs with Bicycle Retailer, Bicycling.com, and such outlets. Strava during the same time had to apologize to users who faced the issue of the shaky rollout of price increases. 

The earlier prices were rolled out by the company (The app being free to use offers extra features for $11.99 a month or $79.99 a year which was previously $7.99 and $59.99 respectively.) without announcement and rates designed region wise differently.

“In an effort to roll out pricing updates for our subscription, we made a mistake by not providing enough information directly to our community,” a January blog post reads, “We sincerely apologize for the confusion and concern this has caused. Our intention was not to hide these pricing changes, we just moved too fast.”

Michael Horvath who had previously stepped down as CEO returned back in 2019. He stepped down in 2013 when his wife had cancer and handed over the control to Gainey. Strava has apologised last month for the sloppiness. 

Michael after the announcement went 8 miles out and back run starting and finishing at Strava’s offices between Potrero Hill and SoMa and his account was skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This makes it evident that he isn’t taking the news too hard.