Why Our App’s Social Model is Collaborative Over Competitive

A week into my first ever track season, freshman year of high school, my coach pulled a few of us newbies into a room to essentially say: “You haven’t shown talent for any specific area of track and field, so I’m going to stick you in middle distances.”

Ouch. Apparently he had been grading everyone at drills these few practices, to sort out where they’d be most competitive. I hadn’t gotten the memo to push things to my limit, and middle distance became the dumping ground for a coach who didn’t feel like helping people get better. This conversation is one my clearest memories and perhaps greatest life ironies, considering I now work at a running-focused company.

But besides the immediate bruising of my ego (which was probably a good thing for my perfectionist high school self), this didn’t affect me all that much. It was great to see people get faster and beat our rival towns, but I had signed up for track to stay in shape and make new friends — not to compete. Indeed, some of my fondest high school memories come from long Saturdays spent at track meets, eating too many bagels and hanging out with teammates (from all classes and social groups) on the sidelines.

While my running times have improved significantly over the years as I’ve discovered my love for distance running (take that coach!), running still plays a meaningful role in my social life. I know I’ve found a likeminded community at Runkeeper (both the workplace and the app with millions of runners across the globe).

When we interview our users to ask their motivations for running, we rarely hear anything about shaving milliseconds off mile paces or beating out neighbors/strangers on stretches of road. The Runkeeper community is more likely to run to improve their health, clear their head, have fun, or earn their way to more donuts. Their inspirations aren’t pro athletes but their friend that’s been running longer than them and maybe is a tad faster or more likely to run a half marathon.

We took this understanding with us as we set out to build new social functionality in Runkeeper, which we launched today under the name Running Groups. We thought about users who wrote in to share just how motivated they were after reconnecting with a high school friend via our app and sharing progress from afar. We thought about the hundreds of thousands of people who’ve shown up for our Global 5K races, mostly for the joy of knowing that they were running “together” with people from all over the globe.

We started Running Groups with a rough prototype that included a spreadsheet and Slack room. We committed to running twice a week over the first month of 2016, checking off the runs we’d complete and egging people on to do their part. Most of us found it was a great way to stay on track during one of Boston’s coldest months. It helped me ramp back into a consistent running routine, something I’ve struggled to keep when I don’t have a race to train for.

The finished Running Groups product packages the elements of the (oh so elegant) prototype, all in the Runkeeper app: you can pick targets, invite friends, watch your progress update, and chat along the way.

Running Groups isn’t about beating the person next to you; it’s about committing to goals with the friends you trust the most, the ones you want to celebrate with you and maybe nudge you when you’re slacking. Sure, there are people out there who motivated by speedy times and being no. 1, but we think most of life is too cutthroat and competitive. Running should be a refuge from all of that, a reminder that we have more in common than we realize, and that life can be better together.

We hope Running Groups can facilitate those connections every day of the year, from every corner of the globe. We look forward to seeing you on the road.