Clubhouse is opening up to everyone, with the buzzy live audio app announcing on Wednesday that it’s ditching its invite and waitlist system for users.
“We’re thrilled to share that Clubhouse is now out of beta, open to everyone, and ready to begin its next chapter,” Clubhouse co-founders Rohan Seth and Paul Davison said in a blog post. “This means we have removed our waitlist system so that anyone can join. If you have a club, you can post your link far and wide. If you are a creator with an audience, you can bring them all on. If you’re hosting a public event, anyone can attend. You can bring close friends, classmates, family members, coworkers, and anyone else you like — on [Apple] iOS or Android.”
Clubhouse’s decision comes after the company has seen its downloads jump in recent weeks, following its Android rollout in late May. Following a rough March and April, Clubhouse’s downloads have started to increase since the app became available to Android users, with Clubhouse being downloaded 7.8 million times in June, per Sensor Tower — the most since the company was downloaded 9.6 million times back in February.
In their blog post on Wednesday, Clubhouse’s co-founders said the company’s invite-only system was important to the company’s early growth, allowing the app to grow in a “measured way” that “mostly” helped “keep things from breaking as we’ve scaled.”
Clubhouse shared a few other stats on Wednesday, including its growth from eight employees to 58 since the start of 2021. Clubhouse didn’t share an exact update on how many users it has, but said it has “added 10 [million] people to the community” since its Android rollout in mid-May.
Clubhouse’s recent spike in downloads comes as tech giants like Facebook and Twitter have looked to jump into the live audio space with their own Clubhouse clones in recent months; Spotify also launched Greenroom, its new live audio app, last month.
“We know there will be many more ups and downs as we scale, and competition from the large networks will be fierce,” Clubhouse’s co-founders said in their blog post. “But we believe the future is created by optimists — and we’re excited to keep working to build a different kind of social network.”
