Strava · B2C · running and cycling app
Start a growth team on new-user activation, then add teams where tests keep winning
Grew from one team to five teams of 70+ people
Workedteam-process
What they did
The first growth team was effectively an activation team (new-user activation is where most early wins are). It expanded to acquisition (supporting paid, referral loops via activity sharing), then absorbed the subscription/monetization team (upsell conversion, friction), then a communications & personalization team for notifications, email and in-app messaging, inspired by Pinterest's growth comms team. New areas start with one person running experiments; if it works, invest more. Teams are cross-functional with growth and product marketers embedded, and new teams are told to just run A/B tests for the first months to learn the idea-to-evaluation loop.
What happened
Growth org of five multidisciplinary teams and 70+ people.
- Stage
- Scale (scaling)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Lessons From Building a 70 Person Growth Team — Jason van der Merwe, Strava“if you looked at the work we were doing, you would classify it as an activation team, so new user activation.”
“a lot of the times, these areas start off as like one person trying a bunch of experiments in an area and us being like, "Well, that's working.”
“"Just run A/B tests. Like, figure out as a team how to go from idea, hypothesis, running the test, evaluation, determining."”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Strava
All 23 Strava tacticsMore from this episode
- Strava: Put words like 'GO' on your icon-only record buttonsOne of the biggest wins ever for first uploads; new-user retention rose a lot
- Strava: Ask new users to add a profile photo during signupLater removed; it added too much friction
- Strava: Count a new user as active once they upload one workout and follow one person in 7 days
- Strava: Get more people to share workout links, then turn link visitors into signupsDrove new registrations, guest says; base of several hundred thousand shares a month
- Strava: Show 'Follow back' on anyone who follows you, wherever their profile appearsBiggest jump in follow rate Strava has ever seen, despite data predicting little gain
- Strava: Once a quarter, let every team member run any test they want on 10% of usersSurfaced ideas data had ruled out, including the biggest follow-rate win
- Strava: Split the big weekly test review into small team meetings once it passes ~70 peopleSmall meetings work great; cross-team learning still unsolved
- Strava: Build one tool for in-app tips, then test removing all tips once teams overuse itOnly growth used it for ~2 years; now so widespread a removal test is running
- Strava: Test which sport and gender appear in welcome-screen photos before signupRunners were put off by cyclist photos; women preferred seeing women
- Strava: Test the words on signup buttons, like 'Continue with' vs 'Sign up with'Copy changes had huge measurable impact; brand photos in product lowered conversion
- Strava: Keep crash-free sessions at 99.99% and ask happy users to rate the appGuest says more five-star ratings help ranking; no numbers
- Strava: Add videos to your store page that show clearly what the app doesVideos really helped, guest says; screenshot tests were hard to trust
- Strava: Test store page designs on a fake App Store web page firstTried; a lot of work, not kept
- Strava: Supply special artwork when Apple offers to feature you in a countryStrava benefits from these features; no numbers
- Strava: Report every test through one shared query and dashboardBecame the source of truth for nearly every experiment
- Strava: Give staff a switch to use the app as a free user
- Strava: Drive a van to local bike races and upload riders' GPS data for themHow Strava got its first cyclists; no numbers
- Strava: Launch a separate running app to win runners, then merge it with the main appHelped a lot in reaching runners, guest says
- Strava: Get pro athletes onto the app and support local running and cycling groupsMost growth is word of mouth, guest says; no numbers