In recent years, there have been a lot of innovations in the social field. It seems that every few days, a new social software emerges, attracting users in a unique way. However, these software often flourish for a short time and gradually decline as the novelty of users disappears.
Clubhouse, a once popular audio social app, has also experienced such ups and downs. But when we look back on this journey, we find that we haven't heard about it for a while.
Clubhouse’s former glory: a chat room full of big names
Clubhouse was launched in April 2020, initially only with an iOS version, featuring audio social networking. At first, users could only use Clubhouse by invitation, but only 8 months later, the number of users exceeded 600,000, and even Andreessen Horowitz invested $10 million in Clubhouse just one month after its launch.
In addition, many celebrities and industry bigwigs have also rushed to join. For example, in early 2021, Elon Musk announced on Twitter that he would speak in the Clubhouse chat room. The chat room quickly filled up and the upper limit of 5,000 people was reached in an instant.
In just half a month, the number of downloads of Clubhouse increased rapidly from 3.5 million to 8.1 million, and its invitation code was once sold for $400 on eBay. At the same time, Clubhouse completed a $100 million Series B financing from Andreessen Horowitz.
However, one year after Clubhouse’s official launch, the number of weekly active users reached tens of millions, but the total number of users began to show a downward trend.
At the end of 2020, Twitter launched the internal test of Spaces, and opened this feature to any user with more than 600 followers in May 2021. In addition, Discord, as a platform with voice chat as its core function, launched Discord Stage Channels in 2021, enabling users to organize more private and professional small-scale voice speech interviews.
Facebook also launched Facebook Live Audio Rooms in June 2021, where public figures and content creators can initiate voice chats that any user can listen to. Some netizens joked that Zuckerberg appeared in the Clubhouse chat room to "steal skills".
In the same year, Spotify also launched its own Clubhouse competitor - Greenroom, which was developed based on their previously acquired sports audio content app Locker Room. Users from all over the world can create and participate in voice chat rooms, and even generate conversations into podcasts.
Faced with this fierce competition, cracks seemed to begin to appear in Clubhouse's walls. The influx of new users caused the application to crash frequently, and the platform was flooded with false information and extreme remarks, which Clubhouse seemed powerless to do anything about. These became Clubhouse's Achilles' heel. By the second half of 2021, its growth slowed significantly. According to App Annie data, Clubhouse reached a peak in downloads in June, reaching 9 million times, but by November, the number was only 920,000 times.
Falling from the altar & self-salvation
In order to retain users and maintain its position as the "hottest social media", Clubhouse has made some attempts. It cooperated with TED to broadcast speeches exclusively in voice chat rooms; cooperated with Stripe to allow content creators on Clubhouse to make money; and launched a waving feature called "Wave" in September 2021, encouraging users to quickly invite friends to join voice chats by clicking emojis, encouraging more casual and natural social behaviors.
Less than a month later, Clubhouse launched the "Replays and Clips" feature, allowing users to relisten, capture and record valuable voice clips and share them to other social media to attract more users.
In addition, Clubhouse also added a text chat function last year, aiming to allow everyone to participate in the conversation in the most comfortable way. At the same time, they are also testing game functions on the application to help users break the ice and start chatting more easily.
Unfortunately, these measures had little effect, and Clubhouse began to lose users on a large scale. The number of active users decreased by about 60% at the beginning of this year, leaving only 3.5 million. In addition, Clubhouse carried out two rounds of layoffs last year and this year, and laid off more than half of its employees in April this year.
After being out of the public eye for a while, Clubhouse seems to have undergone self-reflection and reform. In September, Clubhouse announced in a blog post that "We are back, this time to make a new Clubhouse." The new version focuses on a brand new chat feature called "Chats." Clubhouse introduced this feature, which is similar to combining group chats with Instagram Stories. Users can send voice messages at any time, and other users can listen and reply at any time. This enables users to chat with friends in the address book or friends of friends, thereby increasing the possibility of expanding their social circle.
The "Chats" feature will coexist with the previous voice chat room feature, but Clubhouse hopes that this new change will bring different effects. They retained the most core voice feature because voice is easier and faster than text and pictures, and can make users feel the real emotions of their friends. Asynchronous chat reduces social pressure and makes it easier for users to follow their friends' dynamics and join discussions. This shift is designed to encourage users to switch from following the voice lectures of celebrities to having daily chats with friends.
Faced with this transformation and layoffs, Clubhouse founder Paul Davidson did not blame it on market fluctuations, but said that this was a decision made to meet people's social needs in the post-epidemic era. He believes that as people re-engage in physical social interactions and life, the problem Clubhouse has to solve is how to find interesting conversations and participate in discussions on its platform. The goal of this adjustment is to retain the flexibility of voice so that users can participate at any time, but also to meet the needs of daily social interaction. As for layoffs, this is to make the transformation process lighter, because the size of the team in the past was difficult to adapt to changes.
Founder’s perspective: Explosive growth can bring problems
For startups, achieving explosive growth by becoming an "Internet celebrity" may be a beautiful dream, because it means that it can save high customer acquisition costs and rely on word of mouth to attract the attention of users and investors in a short period of time. Clubhouse is such a story. After a few months, it achieved a 10-fold monthly growth, quickly topped the App Store charts in many countries, and completed three rounds of financing within a year.
However, this high level of attention has also brought pressure to Clubhouse's development, including application crashes, discourse control issues, and increased competition. In addition, other software have followed suit, causing Clubhouse to lose its unique competitive advantage.
However, for founders, this experience is a valuable exercise in mentality. Paul Davidson once said that he has been trained to be "both Buddhist and brave". He understands that everything will not be smooth sailing, but he has the confidence to overcome setbacks. He believes that the explosive growth of Internet celebrities in start-ups is more harmful than beneficial to the company, because what the company needs most is steady development.
Clubhouse's transformation decision also reflects Davidson's change of philosophy. They retained the intimate and flexible voice social core, but shifted the focus from traffic brought by celebrities to building products based on the social scenarios and habits of ordinary people. By transforming the chat from "public" to "private", Clubhouse seems to want to return to its original intention and reconnect people with products.
The good news for Clubhouse is that competitors seem to have lost momentum. However, if even social giants cannot solve the problem of voice social networking, then the challenges facing Clubhouse may be even more severe. Voice social networking has not made much progress in Europe and the United States in recent years. Compared with text, pictures and short videos, voice still seems to have failed to open the hearts of users.
in conclusion
Clubhouse strikes again, showing a determined effort, but they need to not only save their own fortunes, but also meet people's expectations for voice social networking. Will Paul Davidson's optimism and tenacity be enough to win this battle? Let's wait and see.