Exploring performance-based commerce in Strava
Strava, the social sports app, has tons of data from athletes all over the world. Yet, in one of their blogs, the company promises not to “sell you shoes” or display third party ads. Their reasoning? “All apparell is welcome, all devices are welcome, all athletes are welcome”. A noble purpose, notwithstanding. While I truly appreciate the fact that they design athlete-first, I thought it could be an interesting business opportunity for Strava to use workout data to recommend new sports gear. Why can’t both go hand in hand? Let’s explore.
If athletes log their Gear in the app, Strava tracks how often you use it, and how many kilometers you’ve run or ridden your bike, for example. Albeit the company won’t use this data for commerical purposes, it could be interesting for the company to notify runners when it’s time to change their shoes (after every 700 to 850 km). And since they know which shoes I have, why would I mind getting a recommendation for new shoes, with a nice discount, perhaps?
My thinking could be too simplistic, it’s as simple as it sounds... Strava designs athlete-first. That’s something we know, and a design value I want to keep. But I believe that designing athlete-first can go hand-in hand with showing relevant (commercial) information. Strava has loads of usage and training data, but when it comes to gear, it doesn’t use it. Even their web app, where you can actually manage your gear settings, doesn’t provide much other insight than is shown in the app. How can we provide more value to athletes here?
Two examples:
Running: Strava tracks our distance, so why can’t we show athletes how much distance is left before their shoes are worn out and need to be replaced? This isn’t just a commercial opportunity, but also health-related, since running in worn-out shoes can cause injuries (I can tell).
Cycling: The same for cycling. Why can’t Strava tell us when our next maintenance is (or should be) due?
This is basic data that Strava already owns. A step further could be to include weather or route conditions (rough terrain or bad weather might wear out gear even quicker, ... etc.)
It’s still a random idea, though. But as much as I admire Strava’s product vision, I think there should be room for experimentation. This is an idea that started lingering in my head during one of my longer running sessions, and I never made the time to put things on paper. This time, I did, and quickly made some high-fidelity prototypes to tell the story.
I do believe that being athlete-first can go hand in hand with commercial offerings, and this prototype doesn’t even scratch the surface, I’m sure.
Nonetheless, I’ll try to do more of these FBIs (Free Business Ideas), as I call them, in the future, just to strenghten my strategic business and design muscle and keep my eyes open.
If you want to discuss this idea with me, feel free to reach out!