Skip to content

Strava cofounder: Mark Gainey Live in San Francisco

July 15, 2025 · 1 h 13 min

Show notes

After the Y Combinator AI event, Kyriakos Eleftheriou sat down with Mark Gainey co-founder of Strava, who shared his entrepreneurial journey, discussing the evolution of Strava from a startup to a $2.2 billion fitness platform.

Full episode and show notes: https://tryterra.co/podcast/strava-cofounder-mark-gainey


Chapters


00:00 Intro

04:15 How technology changed

11:35 Should you be niche with AI

13:20 Building a Community

17:00 Dealing with big companies early on

20:53 User Feedback

23:00 Elimination process

25:10 Fundraising

28:43 AI

30:50 Adding more sports

36:18 The Future of Fitness

42:20 Storytelling

46:00 Q&A


Full podcast and writeup → Mark Gainey on starting Strava in a Boston basement, growing 99% organically, and why focusing on engagement beat chasing growth

All episodes of Iron Foundry

Settings

Display

Language

Decides which stations you see first on the home page.

History

Recently played stations and episodes and your latest searches are only stored in this browser.

Notifications

A short notice when a podcast you follow has a new episode. Turn off single podcasts with the bell on their page.

Account

Save favorites – in the app and on the website.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Open search
Space
Play or pause
← →
In the player: back 15 s, forward 30 s (episodes) · in a row: next tile
↑ ↓
In a row: target within the tile
Home / End
In a row: first or last tile
Esc
Close window or menu
?
This overview
Now playing

Go to station page

Play next

    Add episodes with “Play next” – they play after the current episode.