Your Essential Clubhouse Guide — how it works, how to get in and other vital details

You need an invitation from a registered user and possess a device running iOS to use Clubhouse. (Image: cowomen/Unsplash)

Remember the early days of Gmail? If you are old enough to remember the launch of Google’s popular email service, you probably know that it was the rage back then. It wasn’t just that it was a Google product. You needed an invite code from someone already registered to make an account.

Google cashed in on that feeling of exclusivity to give itself a solid foundation of users before the service would go for a complete rollout.

It is the same feeling that Clubhouse is trying to emulate. The audio-based social media platform launched last April is invite-only. The app is valued at a cool $1 billion and popular with the tech crowd, including a certain Mark Zuckerberg. Below is a primer on all the essential details you must know about the app.

For starters, what the heck is Clubhouse?

Clubhouse is an invite-only, iOS only—for now—audio-based social media platform that hosts discussions and interviews. A secret society of content creators if you will. Joining a Clubhouse room is pretty much like listening to a phone call or a podcast or a conversation in another room (just that it is clearer).

It was launched in 2020 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth. It was valued at just $10 million in May 2020 but the valuation has skyrocketed after the coronavirus struck and users grew—now at a tad over 2 million and counting.

How does Clubhouse work?

You need an invitation from a registered user and possess a device running iOS to use Clubhouse.

Clubhouse allows users create live chat rooms to host discussions or listen to investors, celebrities and yes, the pretenders. Be nice because when someone blocks you on Clubhouse, you can't join a room in which that person happens to be a moderator or a speaker.

Clubhouse made up of several chat rooms. Speakers in these rooms take turns to weigh in on a specific topic, much like what happens in a podcast or TV show.  Chatrooms contain descriptions about a topic of discussion and users can join and tune in if it interests them. To speak, seek permission by clicking on “raise hand” emoji. If you are not interested in the topic, you can exit using a “Leave quietly” button. Most chatrooms remain open but some display a “closed” message to indicate you are not welcome. You can also ping others to join you in a room.

If you want to start your own room, you'll be prompted to choose between making the room Open, Social, and Closed. An open room is open to whoever is browsing the app. A social room is available to users you follow, and a closed room is private, allowing you to pull in users you want to.

Once a chatroom is closed, remember nothing is saved. This is to make the entire conversation private.

Why is it so popular?

Because of the profile of some users and the convenience. Where else can you listen so easily to Elon Musk, who hosted an audio-chat with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and discussed the GameStop controversy in detail along with millions of listeners? Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, also made a short appearance on the app and discussed the future of VR.  Investors like Marc Andreessen and celebrities such as John Mayer are known regulars.

The app is now valued at a cool $1 billion, not bad for a company that started in 2020. The demand for an entry is so high that the invitations are being sold on platforms like Reddit, eBay, and Craigslist, per Reuters.

What is the future of Clubhouse?

Despite its dizzy valuation, Clubhouse isn’t making money. But in a blog post, Clubhouse has expressed its desire to open the app up to the whole world. The app is currently in the beta phase, which means its currently testing and implementing its feature list.

The network has signalled that new investments will be used to work addressing privacy concerns, ramping up features and address monetization concerns for users through subscriptions, tickets and even tipping that allows users to support their favourite content creators. Clubhouse will likely make money by charging a fee or take a cut from content creators.

Several folks in Silicon Valley who are bullish about its prospects. “I do think it probably is the next Twitter. It’s another place on the internet with a conference, house party, boardroom, and everything all tied into one product,” investor Garry Tan told The Hustle.

Andreessen Horowitz, which led an earlier funding round, said, “The audio innovation of the next decade will rival what we’ve seen in video apps over the past few years,” moving from passive podcast/audiobook listening to more interactive formats.

As they say in Clubhouse, stay tuned!