Assessing Clubhouse’s Post-Pandemic Future

Clubhouse had an eventful week

In the past 7 days there were three big pieces of Clubhouse news:

1. A rumored new round of funding at a $4b valuation—up 4x from January this year.
2. New data from SensorTower indicating a 73% decline in app installs from February to March.
3. The launch of in-app tipping, where creators keep 100% of the proceeds.

Bulls believe that the platform’s engaging live audio experience has carved out a more permanent space in our lives, justifying its $4 billion valuation. Bears point to weak Sensor Tower data as evidence that Clubhouse is really just a pandemic-fueled mirage. But these are lagging indicators—not necessarily indicative of future performance. Instead, if we want to understand the most important determinant of Clubhouse’s future, we should focus on the way they are evolving their product. This is what will help us actually understand what they’re thinking, and where they’re going.

Competitors are emerging, and many are focused on creator monetization

It was about time that Clubhouse introduced creator monetization. Incumbent networks are trying to replicate Clubhouse’s experience, including the likes of Twitter (which is already testing tipping), Facebook, Spotify, Discord, Reddit, and even LinkedIn. Mark Cuban is also backing another Clubhouse competitor, centered around monetization. It’s hard to predict which of these projects will succeed and which will fail, but we can confidently say that their chances will be much greater if they provide creators with a way of generating sustainable income for their work.

This isn’t a contrarian take—it’s the consensus view amongst most platforms now. And it’s not restricted to live audio. Snapchat’s Spotlight program and TikTok’s Creator Fund are just two prominent examples of many from all types of content platforms. 

So, the pressure is on for Clubhouse to help creators monetize.