Interview with Mike McCarthy, VP of Running at Zwift
Mike McCarthy has been with Zwift since the early days, but he recently moved into a new position spearheading the growth of running on the platform. I caught up with him (it’s easier via email than on a bike, trust me) to learn a bit more about the move and what’s in store for Zwift Run.
First: give us a little biographical info about yourself.
I’m 51, a native New Yorker who spent 20 years in Marin (4 of which were spent commuting to Long Beach for Zwift), now living in Orange County. I’m married to Mara McCarthy, and have 3 kids. I spent 17 years racing bikes, 10 of which were as a professional before spending the next 16 working on Wall Street.
In 2014, I made the perfectly pragmatic decision to leave my cushy Managing Director position at Oppenheimer & Co to join Eric Min and his team at Zwift. A decision I’d make again in a heartbeat.
Tell me about yourself as an athlete. I know you’re a monster on the bike because I’ve had the misfortune of trying to keep up with you a few times. Is running a thing you’ve done a lot of as well?
Well, yeah, my background as an elite athlete was in cycling. I was World Champion as a Pro in the Individual Pursuit, a 2x US Olympian, have a couple of Masters World titles to my name as well. I’m also in the US Bicycling Hall of Fame which is something I’m pretty proud of.
That said, I always spent time running in my off-seasons and have run 1:22 for the Half Marathon and 3:01 for the full marathon distances. I also spent 5 years chasing age group triathlon races after I retired from bike racing. Post pro career (which ended in 1998), I’d say I’m pretty balanced between running, cycling, and leisure activities.
Where is your favorite place to run outside, and on Zwift? Do you typically run with others, or go at it solo?
My favorite place to run is definitely in Marin. The trails in the Marin Headlands and on Mount Tam are amazing and just never get old.
In terms of Zwift, my favorite route is the Park Perimeter Loop in Central Park which is pretty nostalgic and always has lots of other folks running and riding.
Outside, I typically either run alone or with my wife when schedules permit. On Zwift, I always try to run with other people which is one of the things I love about Zwift Running. It’s almost easier to find people to run with on Zwift than outside.
You haven’t always been the guy heading up running for Zwift. What was your job title when you first came on, and when was that? When did you move over to the running side?
I started at Zwift in 2014 as what was essentially the VP of Partnerships. The reality is we all played a bunch of different roles in the early days but most of what I focused on was managing our relationships with the cycling industry, athletes, etc.
The role eventually evolved into the VP of Business Development but which touched all parts of the business. In terms of Running, we were lacking any sort of stewardship and despite already having something of a run product and Board level support, we hadn’t done much to turn the fledgling feature into a business. So this past August when Eric asked me to take the Running role, it was a bit of a departure from what I was doing but not to a huge degree. It was also super exciting to have a blank canvas and a great team to work with.
I was at the running launch in NYC February 2018. Saw you there, in fact! You were around in Zwift’s early days to watch Zwift Ride as it grew, and now you’re watching Zwift Run. How do the two compare in terms of their success/growth since launch, from your perspective? Any numbers you can share with us?
It’s no secret that the growth in Running has lagged what we saw in Cycling but in fairness, it also hasn’t been resourced the same way. Many of your readers have heard me say that what we have in Running is really Cycling repurposed. We took the cyclist, stood them upright, put running shoes and shorts on them and said “Look, we have running now!”
The truth is that running and cycling are really different in a lot of ways and finding both the right product-market fit and figuring out how to build awareness of that product are things that we’re finally focused on. We have a good basic product and a lot of learnings, what we’re now doing is taking those learnings and applying them to the end to end experience.
Who is Zwift Run’s biggest competition? What are you doing to win that battle?
Outside of the obvious Peloton, Nordic Track, Netflix, etc, our biggest competitor is running outside. Let’s face it, it’s easy to go for a run outside. The global average run is 23mins. Unlike cycling, safety, weather, time of day, access to good places to ride, etc are all non-issues with running.
If we expect people to run on Zwift, we need to make it super fun, easy to use, and show users that we can help them become better runners.
You’ve mentioned on Facebook that there are some big things in store for Zwift Run. Can you give us any hints as to what we’ll see coming down the road?
In the near term, we’ll be shipping a couple of features to address some of our biggest community requests. But rather than talking about specific features, it’s probably better to think about what experience people are asking us to solve for. In other words, I look at features in buckets of problems that we should be thinking about. Jon Mayfield didn’t build Zwift nor any of the existing features until he had a handle on why he was building them. When we hear “Hey Zwift, it would be great if you had better group runs,” I immediately start thinking of how to make it easier for people to run together, which simplifies how we look at it but also potentially creates more work to deliver.
I know Zwift is always looking to get more people on the platform. What would you say are the biggest challenges to Zwift Run’s growth, and can you share some of what Zwift is doing to overcome those challenges?
Again, Running and Cycling are really different activities and we’re doing a lot of consumer insight work, speaking to the existing community as well as lots of folks from the endemic run space to continue to hone in on what we need to solve for and to get the product-market fit dialed in.
While we still have a lot of questions, we’re learning every day and are committed to testing lots of things until we really nail the experience. We’re taking a product-led approach but are also starting to do specific Run marketing programs which will be really helpful in driving the overall awareness of Zwift as a Running platform.
What are you three top tips for someone looking to get into running on Zwift?
- Think about how you’re going to use Zwift and get setup. Make sure you have a treadmill or access to one, make sure you have a way to run the game (iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC, AppleTV, etc), and then make sure you have a way to connect to the game. In other words, a RunPod, compatible wearable, NPE Runn or TreadTracker, or a compatible Bluetooth treadmill.
- Start running and enroll in the Run 101 plan. This is a great way to try some workouts, establish paces, and see what Zwift Running has to offer.
- Start a training plan or try group events.
Want to hear more from Mike? Check out Zwiftcast episode 73, in which Simon inteviews Mike.
