Why some entrepreneurs are tapping into audio-only chats on the Clubhouse social media app

If you’re running an established business or are a startup entrepreneur, Clubhouse could be a useful social media platform for you to network with other professionals.

Barely a year old, the app has attracted luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban and developed a reputation for being particularly popular among venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Now, some savvy business owners are using it to build their own communities and enhance their brands.

How the Clubhouse app works

Clubhouse is an audio-only app that enables members to communicate voice to voice in various chat rooms. Conversations are monitored by Clubhouse staff, but audio is not permitted to be recorded by members or to leave the app.

Originally targeted at high-profile individuals, Clubhouse members must be invited to become members. But the app has recently opened to a wider audience and started offering free and paid membership tiers.

Its number of active users catapulted from 600,000 in December 2020 to an estimated 10 million today, as a result of the app granting access to a bigger user pool by permitting every new member to invite two more friends.

Users can listen in on live conversations and interviews while offline and participate in conversations in its online forum and other programs. Some of Clubhouse’s rooms are open to all members while others are not. But each one is an unscripted, real-time interaction.

Members can shift from room to room the way they would at a house party, or they can stick around in one room for hours. The app is still in a closed beta and invitation-only, so you’ll need to wrangle an invite to join until there is a mass rollout.

The value of Clubhouse for entrepreneurs

The app’s emphasis on live conversations opens up networking opportunities for small business owners and entrepreneurs. After being admitted, members can create a profile that includes a full description of what their business does, which helps others with similar interests easily find you.

From there, you can listen in or join an existing conversation or launch your own room where you are the speaker or the moderator. Members can also create their own “clubs” to build a following for their brand, or calendar future events featuring their business on Clubhouse.

In the past year, Clubhouse has become an all-in-one place for many entrepreneurs. Like them, you can use the app not just for networking but also for learning new marketing tactics and gleaning insights and advice from experts in the community willing to share. Explore different chat rooms to forge new connections and connect with potential customers.

The top five benefits of Clubhouse for business owners and entrepreneurs:

1. Learning from experts.

   Members can partake in an array of discussions pertinent to business owners and entrepreneurs, such as marketing, AI and finance, to name a few recent real-life examples. Clubhouse offers a chance to find out what some industry leaders are thinking and how they might solve a problem or strengthen a business.

2. Finding talent.

   The Clubhouse can be used as a platform to find people with the skills you seek. By following leaders in areas relevant to your reader, you will be alerted to new conversations, and upon joining you will be able to review the profiles of listeners and speakers. Some members’ profiles indicate whether they are open to new job opportunities.

3. Connecting with potential customers.

   Create a chat room centered around your area of expertise and offer free advice to people who join the room with questions. Over time you can build up a community of followers who trust you and will be more apt to buy from you given the opportunity.

4. Getting feedback

   . Becoming a member of Clubhouse lets you converse with peers about new projects right away. Getting immediate feedback on a new idea is challenging for anybody, but it is also invaluable.

5. Finding investors. 

   Searching for potential investors can be arduous, but Clubhouse has a lively startup scene and venture capitalists are among its top users. Chat rooms like Baby Shark Tank and Pitchhouse, as well as certain shows, offer opportunities for founders and investors to exchange ideas. Some founders even consider Clubhouse an essential part of their fundraising strategy.