🚀 Clubhouse : the keys of the success story

🚀 Clubhouse : the keys of the success story

How Clubhouse became one of the best apps worldwide

Clubhouse is one of the rising mobile apps in 2021, with around 10 million users. Only deployed on the iOS store, the application had tremendous growth in only a few months, and reached an AppStore rating of 4.8 on 5.

Let's see what are the keys Clubhouse used to reach such a success.

The product

What is Clubhouse ?

Clubhouse founders are Paul Davison (previously Highlight founder) and Rohan Seth (ex-Google).

Clubhouse is a mobile app centered on one major feature: audio rooms joinable within only one action.

Indeed, all you need is to log into the app, then you will see displayed vocal rooms, private or public, that you will be able to join, in order to have a chat or simply listen to other speakers.

Clubhouse screenshot home

In order to be able to log in, you will need beforehand an invitation from an existing user already on Clubhouse.

History

Clubhouse was launched in beta and under invitation on the Appstore in April 2020.

In May 2020, Clubhouse receives fundraising of 12 million dollars.

At the end of 2020, Clubhouse has more than 600 000 users. The app had a huge success in China, where political opponents used it to exchange private information. Finally, Clubhouse got ban in China in February 2021.

The app also had huge success in Silicon Valley, where lots of major figures from tech companies joined as users.

In January 2021, Clubhouse announced working on an Android version of the application.

At the same time, Elon Musk mentioned Clubhouse multiple times through Twitter or other media appearances, which increased the app's growth.

Clubhouse Elon Musk Twitter

The strategy

Invitation access

A deliberate choice

Since its creation, Clubhouse is available only on invitation from another member.

First of all, it is pretty common to launch a beta version of a mobile app with a closed group of users. It is very useful to gather user feedback and fix eventual bugs before releasing the app to the public.

In the Clubhouse case, it is certain that access through invitation is a deliberate marketing choice.

Based on the user's number, and the very positive feedback for users, there is no doubt Clubhouse was ready to open to everyone for a while, but they made a different choice.

Therefore, the access through invitation is a strong will from Clubhouse, and had several positive effects on the app's growth, which we will now detail.

Exclusivity feeling

By this invitation system, the user gaining access will feel special, honored.

This feeling of belonging to a closed circle of users will engage a lot the Clubhouse user, who will want to enjoy this opportunity fully and use the app as much as possible.

The user will then become susceptible to invite users on the platform.

When a user joins the community, his profile will mention the people that invited him. It creates some kind of filiation on the Clubhouse community, where everyone is connected to the user that invited him, and so on.

The user that did not have the luck of getting an invite will potentially have an increase of accessing Clubhouse because frustration is a great way to create a need for a user.

Communication on social networks

With this exclusivity, users and aspirant users of Clubhouse gain visibility on social networks.

Indeed, users tend to share to their network the fact that they belong to the Clubhouse community, on one hand, to put themself in the spotlight, and on the other hand to share invitations to their connexions.

For those who are willing to joining Clubhouse, social networks such as Twitter or LinkedIn are a great way to find their invitations.

Thanks to those two segments, Clubhouse ensures huge visibility on social networks. By using a standard inscription system, Clubhouse probably would never have that exposure.

The presence of influential people

As we noticed in Clubhouse history, the app made a difference by the presence, ever since the launch, of influential people in the community.

The first important growth circle was the Silicon Valley, with the presence of famous tech faces. As an example, Marc Zuckerberg had a chat about augmented reality in Clubhouse.

Ever since Elon Musk showed up on the app, lots of mainstream celebrities joined the community, such as Drake, Chris Rock, Jared Leto, or Oprah Winfrey.

Logically, the possibility for any user of Clubhouse of sharing the same chat room with famous people is one more advantage of the platform. Giving access to content that infrequent, made Clubhouse the place to be.

The simplicity

The landing page

The Clubhouse website is a very simple landing page, available at joinclubhouse.com .

Clubhouse website landing page

As you can see, it is harder to make it simpler. We are very far from the very elaborate where a tremendous budget is invested in graphic creation and development.

You can even smile thinking the page probably took only a few hours to set up.

With this page, Clubhouse makes a deliberate choice, it is not at all a budget issue since the company already raised lots of money, and is now valued at a billion dollars.

The message is crystal clear: try the product, as the simple redirect button allows you to do.

It is also the message of a company full of confidence within its product, focusing on it, and not trying to convince users through the website.

Publishing only on the Appstore

At a tech level, Clubhouse decided to focus on iOS and AppStore in the beginning, before announcing at the start of 2021 working on an Android version.

This way, Clubhouse got able to validate its value proposition with iOS users, while having only one platform to maintain.

This technological choice is not usual, lots of entrepreneurs make the choice to launch Android and iOS together to maximize the potential user's volume.

Clubhouse took the opposite direction, focusing completely on iOS developments before finally working on Android.

With this choice, Clubhouse created a waiting queue phenomenon for Android users, that will most likely create new growth for the app when Clubhouse will join the Play Store.

The app ergonomy

The app, by its interface and its features, is simple and intuitive.

On the home page, you can reach a chat room with only one action from the user.

It is in that matter that Clubhouse defines itself as a "drop-in audio chat".

We can notice this simplicity in the app's ergonomy, which goes straight to its purpose, in a pure neat style, ensuring an app easy to use for users of all horizons.

Clubhouse design pure simplicity

The color used is also following that line: the interface is sober, with some white, beige, and grey. Therefore, we can focus on the main feature: the audio chat.

Conclusion

Clubhouse managed to be disruptive in the way they brought the product to the user, using multiple tools facilitating users' engagement while providing a top-quality user experience.

Clubhouse has a bright future ahead, with the upcoming deployment of the Android version, and a very engaged community.

Do not hesitate to share your opinions about Clubhouse in the comments below 🔽

Thanks for reading !

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