In the first few months of 2021, a new app drew attention, with its audio-only chat rooms and the participation of famous people, such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Two years later, the Clubhouse will lay off more than half of its employees to “reset” the company.
The announcement was made by Clubhouse co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth. They say it’s become difficult to communicate across the company and make quick changes as employees are divided into different product groups. As the work is remote, the process is even more complicated.
“Ultimately, teams are difficult to coordinate, people feel blocked by us, and bright, creative employees are underutilized,” write Davison and Seth.
According to them, there is no immediate pressure to cut costs – the company raised US$ 300 million in investments, with a valuation of US$ 4 billion.
Even so, the co-founders want to eliminate roles and have a smaller, more product-focused team. They believe that with fewer employees, the company will be able to develop the next evolution of the social network faster.
The exact number of fired is not known. to the website axlesa company spokesperson said the Clubhouse never grew beyond 100 employees.
Improvement of the pandemic affected Clubhouse
In the explanations, they say that the app works great when your friends are on the platform — the problem is that the context has changed.
In the first months of 2021, the world was still very affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the situation has improved, and bars, restaurants, concert halls and many other meeting places have reopened.
As a result, people are using Clubhouse less, and it’s harder to find friends who are still on the app.
In fact, the Clubhouse’s downfall was much faster than that. In May 2021, the app had already dropped 66% in number of downloads.
Twitter Spaces is the only successful clone
Clubhouse’s success during the first few months of 2021 prompted many companies to release copies.
Facebook created the Live Audio Rooms, or audio rooms. Spotify launched an app called Greenroom, changed its name and dropped the idea in April 2023. Reddit Talk, closed March 2023.
One clone that continues to be relatively successful, on the other hand, is Twitter Spaces. It lets you record the conversation to share later and even has a dedicated tab on the social network app.
Clubhouse, on the other hand, tries to add new features to stay relevant. One of them are houses, launched in August 2022. They function as private groups for more private interactions.
