Thoughts From My One Year Anniversary On Clubhouse
Why Clubhouse Mattered in 2020 and What They Should Focus on in 2021
My Name Is James & I’m Done Talking…
I’ve been on Clubhouse for over a year, gained a personal following of 2.4m, grown my Authenticated community to 34k members, and co-founded a collective of 40+ other creators who are also building their business in the creator economy with Clubhouse as a “utility piece” in their creator economy toolkit. I’ve had a front-row seat at the platform, its growth highs and lows, and a community that went from thousands to millions. We’ve built programs for several celebrities, politicians, and other creators. We advise several brands about their Clubhouse strategy as well as their social audio future. I don’t think there are that many other creators who know the platform as well as I do and Adweek named me “Social Audio Creator Of The Year.” Last week keynoted at Adweek’s Social Media Week in front of several brand leaders on the topic of Clubhouse. Here’s my story on the platform as well as a few things I think they need to focus on to be successful.
Nait Jones from Andressen Horowitz called me in May of 2020 and said, “I have a platform that we invested in that you should try out. If you like bring your community of celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and investors.” At the time I had been in 3 months of early pandemic virtual community building panels, summits, and “dinners” in virtual. The Monday following the shut down in LA, I immediately started producing what I was calling “Virtual Jeffersonian Dinners” which consisted of me inviting members of The Authenticated to join in a 7 pm salon dinner on a video stream. Nevermore than 10 people, these “dinners” were exactly the comfort people needed. It was evident that a safe place to talk about concerns over pandemic and hopes for the future were all anybody was focused on and we were able to provide that for The Authenticated, a community I had started 4 years prior on WhatsApp and Slack. Made up of over 400 investors, founders, executives from LA to Dubai, Kenya to Atlanta our community runs the breadth of “Rappers To Royalty.” The thought of doing this kind of thing in audio and possibly adding more members to The Authenticated was interesting, however, I also knew that this was going to be a platform that raised a ton of capital and as an angel investor I also wanted to be on the cap table if I was bringing that kind of value.
So we started to move our community to Clubhouse in June. With an unlimited supply of invites to a buzzy new platform, we created a new value opportunity for my existing 400 members. They loved it from the beginning because we were able to invite them and give them a safe space to connect with other Authenticated members. As the US and world were in the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement, Clubhouse became a place to voice our frustrations, concerns, and demands for justice. It also became a place where white and “privileged views” would have a stage. Masked in a lot of intellectual mumbo-jumbo there was a growing group of largely white educated white men who felt very comfortable challenging the notions of US racial justice and police brutality. This is what made it frustrating, challenging, and for me often fascinating. For the first time, I had a chance to get a first-hand look at what they are saying “when you are not in the room” except many black people were. I’d say that during the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight against white supremacy, Clubhouse was filled with many creative black voices, many of whom I either brought to the table, were brought by somebody I brought, or just individuals I knew or would get to know on the platform. I think the front row seat on those conversations gave me fuel to the larger problem I am looking to solve. For that, I’m actually very thankful as it gave me a mission and something to “solve for” post-pandemic.
Managing My Time On Clubhouse
I admittedly had to take some time off of the platform in October and November. The stressful conversations around the election caused me to really examine my stress levels and at this time my mental health. I was spending a lot of hours to this point not just hosting my community on Clubhouse but also continuing to host virtual dinners and virtual summits in what we dubbed “Off-Campus.” This time away from being on Clubhouse was enriching and rewarding as it gave me the distance to focus on my larger mission.
In December I returned to Clubhouse and started doing more rooms on things I thought were important and that would lead us to meet more of the global community that I had brought into Clubhouse and were joining Clubhouse. At the top of the year, with the help of a partner in Kuwait, we built an entire series on the “creator economy in the Gulf” and focused my first 3-hour special on Kuwait called “Unapologetically Kuwait.” I would meet a few amazing Kuwaiti’s while doing rooms about UAE. Having spent a significant time in the region, Kuwait had never made my list. We had an incredible time hosting chefs, rappers, filmmakers, sports executives, royals, and government officials from Kuwait. I learned and connected with the creative energy in Kuwait all through audio. The Authenticated community is planning an entire trip to the Gulf at the end of the year all because of this early exploration of Clubhouse.
The Birth Of The Audio Collective
In March 40+ of Clubhouse top creators were asked by Stephanie Simon from Clubhouse to be a part of a collective put together by Clubhouse to help them better understand creator needs on the platform. The group started getting inbound requests from brands directly and became interested in the marketplace opportunity so we formed a group called The Audio Collective not connected to Clubhouse directly. Immediately we had a feature in New York Times in a story written by Taylor Lorenz. The idea of the collective was to support creators on the platform with their business needs and provide a collective that would help launch creator dreams. The collective remains together in chat threads but most of us went on to focus on our businesses or start/join other collectives.
I met Catherine Connors as she was leading our collective and asked her to partner with me on the next logical extension of that idea. While examining the Audio Collective it was clear this was not the creators and influencers of Web2.0. past. That era produced the Tyler Oakley, Lily Singh, Gangham Style phenomena only possible by platforms like Youtube. These creators that we were meeting were business leaders, academics, mental wellness coaches, venture capitalists and they do have a story to tell and communities and platforms to serve. We thought it was interesting enough to start a platform that brings creators, brands, and platforms together and so Catherine and I have been heads-down building something in that general space for the last 4 months that we will announce soon.
Why Clubhouse Mattered in 2021
Clubhouse mattered in 2021 because it gave power to the voice. The voice says everything and is a powerful tool. You can hear authenticity and those who are not authentic immediately. The ability to shape conversations or creative experiences around voice is the role of the Clubhouse moderator and it is clear there is a lot of creative territories to cross for moderators of all kinds. All of a sudden those individuals who had spent time on the platform, knew the ins and outs were being asked by brands to host rooms and create conversations. In May of this year, The Authenticated partnered with Mental Health Coalition, an org started by Kenneth Cole to reduce mental health stigma. Every Monday in May, Catherine Connors and I hosted Kenneth and his community in our room around a myriad of topics in mental health. We’ve hosted rooms that have ranged from a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg with the Ginsburg Family, a show about Black Music Originals with legendary black music exec Vivian Chew featuring guests like legendary George Clinton, superstar writers, and producers Gamble & Huff, and singer and music tech futurist Nona Hendryx and sexual wellness show I host with a founder named Chloe Macintosh from Kama.
As the world goes into Hybrid 1 (June-Sept) I think Clubhouse will be in search of how they want to define the space. Being the catalyst and leader in the social audio conversations allows them to really define the creator and how they will support creator-led experiments and programming. Companies like ours will continue to utilize Clubhouse as an extension of the work we are doing in giving brands a voice. We see social audio as a form of “collaborative storytelling” and different from a podcast. We think there will be a decline in real interest in experts waxing on a panel and that Clubhouse should be a place for broader creative uses of social audio
However, fast forward 1 year later and Clubhouse is not the only game in town. Several other players have entered the game including the big guns Twitter, Discord, and Spotify to name a few. At this point, it looks like those platforms have the potential to make a play at the wrong of the “creator spectrum” and miss an opportunity to broaden the scope as well as change the narrative that building a platform around creators. Clubhouse and all of the platforms for that matter win when they move from “user growth” and focus on “creator experience and growth.”
What Clubhouse Should Do Now
I think Clubhouse makes it but not without a ton of work. Here’s where I think they need to step up. Full transparency we are now investors in Clubhouse through an allocation in the last round. We want to see the platform win big as we not only invested dollars but a lot of time building out Authenticated which is 34k followers and my personal profile which is 2.4m.
Recognize and never forget that the tools don’t have the power, the creators do. Easier said and harder to truly execute on this one. Without focusing here Clubhouse does not make it.
Getting creators together in the real world. I think we ultimately want to see people in real life after spending time with them in Clubhouse
Supporting creators who are building multi-dimensional/multi-platform networks. I think it takes more than Clubhouse to build a community. I think helping creators understand their “pre-during-post” show strategy is paramount.
More brands open to experimenting on the platform. We are certainly out there talking to the brands and coming up with innovative ways. These brands will require a higher touch, more analytics, and some creator magic from moderators who understand how to weave in a story but also plug into broader brand goals.
Clubhouse needs to nurture the stars. I don’t mean the current celebrities, notables, or famous people using the platform. Much like a record company, they need to be scouting for talent and then supporting the talent on not just “hosting rooms” but giving them tools, access, and resources on building businesses. This would be a game-changer for them and give distance to the other “fighter jet” platforms looking to do similar things in social audio.
Continue to support the often not heard or marginalized voices and communities. Let’s face it these are the voices that helped drive the platform not the initial crop of VCs or famous people who were originally brought in. Black, Brown, Female, Queer, and those not from major media markets are the worlds that drove the most traction for Clubhouse last year. Know what got you to the game and find more disenfranchised and “off the grid” voices, they are out there, make them feel like they have a home
If you are interested in the work we are doing in Clubhouse or the creator economy overall please text me “clubhouse” to 415-843-8100 or email james@authenticated.la
Thank you so much for your advice and openness. Appreciate you. #RTW✴️
Insightful piece James.