Vivek Gowri has always been a hardware guy. Mechanical engineer by training, product manager by day, and now owner of San Francisco Running Company by the rest of it, the thread running through all of it is the same: a deep, specific obsession with how physical things are made and why they work.

Sitting at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the Marin headlands, he has a front-row seat to how technology moves from computer to trail, and has sharp eye for when it actually earns its place. He also happens to be doing it as someone who's spent 12 years being keenly aware of who's on the trail, and who's being left behind. 

We chatted with Vivek to talk tech, gear, specialty retail, and how he's bringing it all together to engineer the future of running in his community.

Give us the overview on who you are.

I’m Vivek Gowri - I’m the owner of San Francisco Running Company, and also a product manager at NVIDIA. I’ve lived in SF since 2013, and have been running for about that long. I moved to SF right after college and quickly fell in with a group of runners as my primary social circle, which led to running races, discovering trail running, and finding the weekly Saturday trail running group at SFRC. Taking over SFRC 12 years later feels a bit like coming full circle, in that sense.

You've described yourself as a hardware guy, with an obsession on racquets, computers, shoes. What does that actually mean to you, and how does it explain how you ended up owning a running store?

When I describe myself as a hardware guy, it’s really the passion and enthusiasm for devices and gear - tangible, physical objects - of all sorts. I’m a mechanical engineer by education and a computer hardware engineer by profession, so I’ve really made hardware a central theme in my life.

This follows through my running journey, particularly in trail, where there’s so much variety in the shoes and equipment people use, and so much technical innovation in the products being developed. Owning the store puts me at the intersection point of products and consumers, which is exciting because we get to experience all the new shoes and gear as it comes out, as well as see how people use it.

 

If software is about inputs, outputs, and optimization, what’s the equivalent loop in running gear?

So much needs to go right in the process of developing a shoe or any innovative piece of gear. From the basic product soul of what it is trying to achieve and where it sits in the market, to the design decisions taken to get there, the manufacturing complexities involved, and the overall product marketing story. There’s no silver bullet, but you can tell when a company has made thoughtful choices in the process of developing a product.

When you look at a piece of gear, what are you seeing that most people miss?

I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say I see things that others don’t, but I focus a lot on engineering tradeoff choices, manufacturability, and production tolerances.

How does being gear-obsessed dictate how you run a store (what you stock, how you talk to people, what you care about?) 

There’s a balance to hit - I’m inherently swayed by innovative technologies and products, but the classics still move a lot of volume, particularly with casual or mainstream consumers. So what interests me isn’t necessarily the right answer, or the only answer. You have to sell a lot of Camrys so that you can keep selling Supras, if you will.

But the cool thing is that we get to give new brands and new products a shot if we think they’re doing interesting things, and there’s a healthy amount of inventory risk I’m willing to take if I believe in a product. And having a strong perspective on what products are good, and why, lets us give customers an informed opinion to guide their purchasing path.

 

You work in tech, you live in SF, you're surrounded by people who think "disrupting" something can only be AI-related. You went and bought a physical store. What does that say about where you think the actual interesting problems are?

I think physical spaces and experiences are going to get substantially more important to the way people live and recreate over time.

The internet was supposed to kill specialty retail. What did everyone get wrong about that?

Shoes are so personal. Particularly running shoes - fit and comfort are so nuanced and individual, there’s only so much an online product page or even hands-on reviews can tell you without actually putting the shoe on yourself and getting some strides in.

You bought SFRC, but kept your day job; why? What does having both going allow? What does it constrain?

The primary reason I kept my day job is that I love what I do. I never want to give up on building hardware, and we’re in a very exciting place as a company, solving incredibly challenging problems that I love getting to tackle on a daily basis.

The secondary reason is that it gives me a cushion to take a bit more risk with SFRC, and invest in the business in a way that doesn’t financially constrain us in the short or long term. The primary downside is my bandwidth - I am still trying to find the appropriate balance of work, running, and sleep.

 

What does SFRC look like in five years if you get it right, not in terms of revenue, but in terms of what it feels like to walk in?

SFRC has been a pillar of the North Bay running community for nearly 15 years, and I want that to continue, but I want to make it a destination for people in other parts of the Bay Area and beyond. A place that has unique, innovative products, but also serves as a community hub where people can go before or after their runs to hang out.

You're a South Asian tech engineer who owns a running store in Marin and runs a Friday morning crew called Chai and Miles. As far as we know, that's not a story that existed before you. What do you want someone who looks like you to feel when they hear it?

Trail running, in general, isn’t a particularly diverse sport. It’s something that I have always been keenly aware of since I started trail running, and a huge part of changing that is seeing representation - both in the day to day of trail run groups, and also in the leadership of the sport. Beyond that, I want to normalize running and physical activity in the South Asian diaspora, I think it’s long been an overlooked part of the South Asian experience.

What’s a belief the running industry holds that you think is wrong? What are they getting right?

I think we’ve gone too far with stack heights. I also think carbon plates are largely unnecessary in trail shoes. And there’s a few signs that the industry is seeing this and course correcting a bit over the next couple of years. I also think most of the big brands have gone too far with SKU proliferation, but that seems less likely to stop.

Things that are going right: innovation with foams and technical fabrics over the last handful of years has been incredible. A renewed focus on reducing weight of shoes and apparel is a huge positive. Having new brands dedicated to optimizing specific pieces of gear, whether socks, vests, belts, etc, has been great in pushing the entire industry forward.

Favorite head-to-toe pieces of gear right now? Norda 005

Race you’re most excited for this season? To spectate - Western States. It’ll be an all timer. To run, Broken Arrow.

Go-to post-run meal in the Bay? Pho Huong Viet in SF

Song you want to hear the last leg of an ultra? Powerhouse by Anirudh Ravichander

Person you wish you could go for a long run with? Lewis Hamilton

Follow along with Vivek and, if you're local to the Bay area, head into San Francisco Running Company (and check out Courier in-person!).

Photos by the ever-talented Ben Jackson