Can brands join Clubhouse? No, as an organization. Yes, as individuals.

Clubhouse is an audio social app that allows anyone, anywhere to spontaneously join group chats. They’ve raised more than $100M, with a $1B valuation. Like all new and successful apps, brands want in on the action.

I was listening to a recent Clubhouse Townhall. The team hosts large Q&A chats pretty much every day, if not multiple times per day. Co-founder & CEO Paul Davison, who is quite transparent and personal in his approach, was asked about the possibility of brands being able to join the community. 

So… can brands join Clubhouse? No, but the Clubhouse team wants to help individual team members who work for brands to get the most out of Clubhouse by connecting with the Clubhouse Partnerships team (partnerships@joinclubhouse.com).

Clubhouse accounts are for people, for now.

Paul noted that creating an account with a brand’s name is not how Clubhouse would like the current experience to work because accounts are for people right now. He said that they are thinking about how this should evolve.

I agree with the answer Paul gave…

“The reason for that is that we want Clubhouse to be a place that's about people and it’s about genuine human connections. And when you talk to someone with your voice it’s really important that you feel like you know who they are. That they have a reputation they’ve invested in. That it feels like a human conversation.”

If a brand were to be hosting a conversation on Clubhouse, I personally think that the intrigue would be in who at the brand is speaking. 

For example, if Nike were hosting a conversation on Clubhouse, the conversation and potential audience would be different depending on who at Nike would be speaking.

Also, it’s much more compelling if Elon Musk joins Clubhouse to speak — which he did — as opposed to SpaceX or Tesla joining Clubhouse. I don’t want to hear SpaceX talk to Sriram, I want to hear Elon talk to Sriram.

What’s to stop brands from signing up?

Paul noted that when Clubhouse sees a brand create an account, the Clubhouse team is actually excited about the interest. A Clubhouse team member reaches out to the brands to help get their personnel set up with individual accounts instead.

He said that one thing brands can do right now is set up a Club. The Clubhouse Partnerships team is available to help brands think through programming and other ideas brands could execute on that would genuinely be “additive to the community.”

If brands want to discuss options, all they need to do is to reach out to the Partnerships team at partnerships@joinclubhouse.com.