There is a new kid in town

And I'm excited...

As I write this today I’m currently sat in a virtual ‘room’ with about 200 people. I’ve just been on the virtual stage and told everyone what I’m working on (if you’re wondering, I’m putting together a new deck on personal branding for a client’s training session next week).

The agenda of the room is…there is no agenda, just positive vibes. Before you all think I’ve lost my marbles and gone a bit too flower power on you, let me explain.

There is a new social media kid in town and I’m quite excited. Its creating a quite a stir with its exclusive, invite only access and A-list users. In fact, I’d go as far to say that I haven’t been this excited about a new platform since twitter launched. I’ve waited almost 15 years! It’s called Clubhouse.

Here are some (crazy) stats for you.

In May last year Clubhouse entered beta. It had 1500 users and was valued at 100$ million and it didn’t even have a public website!

In late 2020 it still only had a few thousand users and then in December that started to snowball to over 600k. I got my invite in early Jan, thanks to my friend The Money Whisperer (cheers Em).

So back to the app then – what is it?

It feels a bit like the last frontier to be broken on social media, a collaborative audio experience. You log into rooms on topics of interest and moderators organise the conversation. At first I couldn’t get my head around it – surely that’s carnage, people all speaking over each other right? It’s actually not (well the rooms I’ve been in anyway). When you join a room, you join as part of the audience without a microphone. The moderators control the stage. Only when you’re on stage can you speak and I’m already learning that there is an etiquette to this. When you are invited onto stage, you must for example mute your mic immediately. If you want to answer a question you can raise your hand to be picked. It’s surprisingly smooth.

So far I’ve been in rooms about entrepreneurship, business success, podcasting, meditation, sports and crypto currencies. Most of the time I just listen. I’m figuring out my path right now and working up to creating my own rooms at some point. I want to feel totally comfortable I’ll be able to add value. The 9am group I mentioned at the beginning of this entry is one of the most successful UK based rooms and I was made aware of it by one of the apps power users Abraxas.

One of the things I’ve most liked about my experience so far is the camaraderie and help given by enthusiasts of the app. The first room I attended was a walkthrough of the app, run by Abraxas, completely in his own time and selflessly. He seems to do this everyday! I was in that room for at least an hour or two just soaking it all in. By the end of the session and having asked a question or two myself, I felt I had a really good understanding of the mechanics of clubhouse. Where else do you get that sort of immersive onboarding experience?

I’ve yet to figure out exactly how to integrate this into my business. For now, I’m happy watching, learning and thinking about the possibilities, of which there will be many.

You can reserve your username by downloading the app: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/