Forget The Nice Guy or Soho House. The place to find Hollywood and Silicon Valley powerhouses during the pandemic has been on Clubhouse, the invite-only, audio-driven app that’s quickly gaining steam as a networking tool for those looking to make it in the entertainment and tech worlds.
Hop on Clubhouse at any given time and you could stumble into conversations led by Wiz Khalifa, Tiffany Haddish, Ava DuVernay, Ashton Kutcher, Brian Koppelman or Scooter Braun, among several other celebs. Kevin Hart, in a story that’s already solidified in Clubhouse lore, recently took part in an hours-long conversation focused on whether he was, in fact, funny. And on the tech side, Clubhouse is packed with entrepreneurs like former Twitter CEO Ev Williams, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and former Y Combinator President Sam Altman, along with a laundry list of angel investors and venture capitalists.
Clubhouse isn’t complicated: Users can go on the app and join a “room” where a particular conversation is going on. Often, these conversations are focused on business and networking topics; “Pivoting from live events to virtual events + sponsorships” and “virtual writing cafe” were two rooms pulling in users on Monday, for example. Once inside, users can listen to the discussion and, if approved by the room moderator, chime in and join the conversation themselves. It’s not uncommon to see rooms with a few dozen speakers and a few hundred users listening in.
Since launching in April, the app has grown to over 100,000 beta users, according to an individual familiar with the company’s internal metrics. The app’s early traction helped it land a $12 million round of funding from Andreessen Horowitz, valuing Clubhouse at $100 million.
As the new, go-to spot to listen to entrepreneurs and stars, Clubhouse has also become the audio version of LinkedIn for those looking to make connections in Hollywood. Even in normal times, making it in the movie business is tough enough. But for Sade Sellers, a 31-year-old screenwriter from Burbank, California, one of the many problems tied to the pandemic has been the end to casual networking events — coffee meet-ups with executives, conferences and post-work drinks with people in the film industry — that have helped her career grow.