Joe Rogan is Wrong About Clubhouse

So Joe Rogan has publicly lambasted Clubhouse. I did a room once, everyone interrupted each other, it's like a podcast full of interrupting everyone, and then I left and it's rubbish. Now I guess Joe Rogan's used to monologues, or dialogues, let's be fair, he's probably used to dialogues, not trialogues or quadrilogues or, you know, big group discussions. But it's my 1-year anniversary of launching on Clubhouse. And I actually think that Joe Rogan is, is wrong about Clubhouse, but how would he know? Because he's only done 1 room, but he has massive influence. You know, if you think about it, he's done billions or he's had billions of downloads on his podcast. He's done thousands of episodes and he's one of the top respected content creators on the planet. And I very much, much respect and admire his work. But I also think it's important to give balance and perspective. I have actually done Clubhouse rooms probably for 350 out of 366 days, give or take. And I've got 7 lessons I want to share with you. Now, these lessons, yes, they're about Clubhouse and my 1-year anniversary, but there's much wider lessons to be learned as well. So here's what I'm going to share with you. First things first is I have a gift to share with you. It'll be on about point 4. Because I'm celebrating two anniversaries, a one-year anniversary and a six-year anniversary. So I'm going to cover, um, the polarity of Clubhouse. I'm going to cover getting in early and what that meant. I'm going to cover collaborations. I'm going to cover community. I'm going to cover the mess at the start. I'm going to cover content repurposing, multi-stream living, and the rise of the audio platform. And then I'd love your thoughts, by the way, so feel free to chime in in the comments on what your thoughts are and DM me in the back channel and let me know what you think. Stay till the end, I've got some special gifts for you. Two anniversaries, happy birthday to me twice. All right, number one. So when Clubhouse launched, I actually think their marketing campaign was pretty genius because normally when people launch a social media platform what they do is just open it and let you in. And they were one of the first to say, no, you can't come in, you have to get recommended by someone who's already in. If your name is not Dave, you're not coming in. And what that did was that created a great frenzy and a great buzz and a lot of people talking about it on social media. Or, do you know what Clubhouse is? Have you got in on Clubhouse? Has anyone got a referral for Clubhouse? I can't get in on Clubhouse. And there was this mystique and this discussion and this desire to get in because everyone wants what they cannot have. And this actually was a great, great marketing campaign from Clubhouse. And since then, some other audio apps have launched who didn't do that, and they've kind of commoditized themselves. So step number 1, great marketing campaign, a bit of mystique, a bit of building desire, make it difficult to get in. We all want what we can't have. I'll share with you some of the other audio platforms in a moment. Um, but they definitely didn't have the same epic rise that Clubhouse did at the up. Okay, uh, now, um, my first main point is that people either seem to love or hate Clubhouse, and some people loved and hated Clubhouse. Um, I, I got my friend here on stage, Dylan, who's— his anniversary today, and I know he's had a love-hate relationship with Clubhouse. Now, on the one hand, I think building collaboration, community, discussion openness, connection. I think most people would agree who've leveraged Clubhouse a lot and been on it a lot would say it's been great for that. But sometimes it can become a bitchy moany fest. Sometimes when there's too many people on the stage all trying to fight and talk, it could become a bit of a free-for-all. And I think that was the one experience that Joe Rogan had. And you know, but I remember when I was, you know, just turned legal age, I had sex. I didn't know what I was doing. It wasn't a very good experience, but I didn't go away and go, well, I'm having sexist shit. I'm not doing that again. I'm not coming back for that. That was just my first experience, and I think that was how it rolled with Joe Rogan. Um, so people either loved or hated Clubhouse, and that created actually good polarity. It created good discussion and debate on social media. And there were a lot of haters about Clubhouse, but, um, the main lesson for me was ignore the haters and try it yourself. You know, everyone will hate— well, except the lovers. I'm a lover, not a fighter. But you know, on social media, there's such a— it seems to be like okay just to hate and criticize and troll. And everyone's going to experience it. And, um, you know, whatever you love, someone will loathe. What's great about you, others will hate about you. So a great lesson here is ignore the haters. Just try stuff, test stuff. I'll come back to that on point 5, by the way. Um, but in one year I built 285,000+ followers. I've become one of the top 100 followed people on Clubhouse. I'm not a previous celebrity. I didn't go on Love Island. I don't have an OnlyFans page. I wasn't a viral sensation. I'm not an Instagram influencer, a TikToker. I'm just a normal guy creating content who's got a decent amount of experience being an entrepreneur. So I did it the hardcore, slow and steady I wouldn't say legit way, because how you build your following is how you build your following, but I kind of did it the slow and steady way. And being in the top 100 followed people on Clubhouse has opened up many doors for me, which I will share. Okay, number 2 lesson in my 1-year anniversary of being on Clubhouse is, um, getting in early but not too early on a social media platform. So if you get in too early, right at the start, it either doesn't work and there's bugs For example, Tai Lopez just recently launched Speakeasy. I went in really, really early and it was quite buggy. Not criticizing Tai because, you know, he might do a version 2, 3, 4, or 5 and he might overcome those bugs, but it was just a bit too early. There were no users on it and it was a bit buggy. I wish him luck, of course, because I want every entrepreneur to succeed. But, you know, lesson from Clubhouse is they'd already, already been the iteration 1 because unfortunately The Americans seem to have the birthright advantage because many of these apps and platforms launch to America first, um, or when there's new tools and features and monetization opportunity, they get launched in America first and then they come over the pond to the UK. But in this instance, it was good because I think it was March 2019 that Clubhouse launched, or seemed to launch, and it was some beta tester American users, a few celebs and a few sort of ordinary people. Now they actually ended up— now they have like millions of followers, and it was really good for them to get in early. But it could have broken, it could have not worked, it could have ruined some reputations. Because, you know, you see Mark Cuban pumping Fireside a lot because he's an investor. Um, I've just seen, um, JPC has promoted a new app called Zion, which is supposed to be a freedom of speech app. But if you get in so early which probably 90% of these social media apps and platforms will end up dying, then you could put a lot of time into something that breaks, or you could end up damaging your reputation if you promote it. So the lesson from Clubhouse is get in early, but let, let there be a beta tester or two first. You know, oh, there's this new, um, vaccine. All right, I'll let them take it first, and if they don't die, then I'll take it. That's my attitude on social media channels. Get in early but maybe not really, really early, maybe not first. I'm going to watch Fireside Green Room, Twitter Spaces, all these channels which are fairly new but not new, and start testing them. Now, because I got in early, but probably round too early, I got, I got some upside benefit of being in early. So for example, if I'd have been running a room on Clubhouse for the last 10 minutes, and 9 months ago I'd have about 800 people in the room, uh, and now it would be more like 80 to 120. So there was the benefit of the virality and the algorithms giving increased reach and not halving the reach and creating new restrictions and rules. So when channels launch quite early, it's a bit of a wild west where there's not much regulation, there's, there's not much stopping you. They need to be viral in the early months and years, otherwise no one's going to go and use them. So when you get in quite early on a channel, you get that early virality that you don't get if you're in too late. And my friends here on Clubhouse will know if they've been on Clubhouse a year, the virality, the reach, the amount of people using each room was probably 8 times more about 9 months ago. And if they keep reducing the reach, in the end everyone's going to leave. So, you know, um, on one of the titles I just launched, I put why Joe Rogan is wrong for now, because he might end up being right, and I might have to eat up ending— uh, I might have to end up eating the phone I use for Clubhouse. Because, um, in the end, if it doesn't keep growing, um, and it doesn't give a financial incentive for creators to stay, and it doesn't bring in new audiences— I don't see any marketing for Clubhouse. I see Wisdom putting a lot of marketing out there, I don't see any for Clubhouse though, which is really interesting. So, you know, look, time will tell. It's been great one year in, but you know, it's a bit like the honeymoon period is over now. We've all had that honeymoon relationship and then the test comes. But the lesson is get in early, but not too early. Uh, and my next lesson is when you have a couple or 3 or 5 people who you respect who say X social media channel is going to be big. Get in. Now, I used to ignore them, or Gary Vee would say TikTok's going to be massive, NFTs are going to be massive. Yeah, whatever, Gary, you've probably got an interest, you're always, you know. But I actually now do listen to respected people, and if 2 or 3 people at the same time say, hey, Clubhouse is going to be big, Fireside Green Room, etc., it's going to be big, Twitter Spaces is where it's at, I'll go and test it. And I think that's really important. And I used to wait longer because I wanted other people to try it, or I was scared of not knowing how it all works. Okay, lesson number 3 then. So thanks for tuning in. Joe Rogan recently said on one of his podcasts that Clubhouse was basically rubbish, um, and it's just like a podcast but where everyone can interrupt you. And he's obviously seeing it through the lens of being a great dialogue podcaster, um, where he can only be interrupted once. But he only tried one room apparently. And I don't think that Joe Rogan is particularly right about this. And I think if he'd have maybe done a few live podcasts on Clubhouse, he could have taken over Clubhouse and definitely could have grown his following. Not that he necessarily wants or needs to because he's huge. But, you know, when someone as high profile as that comes out and says, you know what, Clubhouse is shit— on the same day I heard about this, it was my one-year anniversary of Clubhouse. I thought, hmm, this is actually going to make good content. And what I always like to do when I share this content, you know, I sometimes get a bit ranty, I sometimes shout and scream, I sometimes jump on what's going on on the media. Someone has just said here, and he's called Captain Cock Sucker, so I think that says it all, but he said, is this just where you rant to yourself? Um, well, I mean, content is great therapy. Um, but, but no, it's what I try and do with my content, because I'm live on Facebook, live on Clubhouse, live on TikTok, and I'm recording a podcast for The Disruptive Entrepreneur. So I'm ranting to a lot of people. Mr. Cock Sucker, spelled with an O and a 3, I can still read it. Um, is what I try and do is distill the lessons, even in some things that are challenging or some things that, you know, maybe not everyone agrees with. So people tend to love or hate these new social media channels, like it was Clubhouse. Don't judge it until you've tried it. Number 2, get in early but not first. You wouldn't want to drink the poison first. You'd want to drink the poison when you know it's not poison. Okay, lesson number 3 then is collaboration over competition. I'll be straight up with you, leading into 2020, my mindset was still in competition. Oh, we've got to beat our competitors in this disruptive time. There's lockdowns, how do we be better than the rest, etc.? How do we disrupt our competition? And that's really now becoming a bit of an old-school mentality. So, um, collaboration is the new form of competition. And I actually think that Clubhouse was one of the best teachers to us all of creating collaborations. So, um, probably the most famous collaboration on Clubhouse is the UK Mod Squad. Now, if you've never heard of the UK Mod Squad, it's myself, John Lee, Ed JC Smith, Shah Wasmond, Samantha Brown, Daniel Priestley, Ryan Piernik, Nick James. It's a crew of us in the UK. Who supported each other and ran rooms daily and enabled each other to share content and keep the content and the rooms going for a long time. And we have built lifelong friendships and partnerships, you know, with, um, John Lee, for example. I was a competitor of his for 15 years and didn't want to know him, didn't want to get near him in business. You know, it was, it was like my, our arch enemies, and he would probably say the same. And actually Clubhouse brought us into a collaborative mindset. We've done a lot of collaborations since, made many hundreds of thousands of pounds each, you know, in the last sort of 7 months collaborating, built each other's following, supported each other's brands and launches, etc. Um, and so I think that, um, it was a great lesson for me on collaborations, and I think it could be a good lesson for Joe Rogan. Now Joe Rogan obviously has got amazing guests, and I know he's become really good friends with people like David Goggins and Lex Fridman, who you know, he's done shows with. But I think he'd have much more collaboration opportunities were he able to do some Clubhouse rooms. That being said, some responsibility has got to go on to Clubhouse, because when Clubhouse see Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Rogan and all these big dogs jumping on their channel, which they did in 2020, then to lose them is sacrilege. Or 2021. But to lose them is sacrilege. And I really do think that Clubhouse have got to bring the big influencers back, because the big influencers bring their audience. And, you know, I think for 2022 they've got to step up to the next level, reward the creators, bring in some big creators, create monetization opportunities, and bring in all those new users. But, um, you know, I've become really, really good friends with many people on Clubhouse, the UK Mod Squad, the US, um, Mod Squad, who we've sort of adopted into the UK Mod Squad, uh, and we'd never be able to run rooms every single day on Clubhouse and continually give content were it not we were able to collaborate with each other, support each other, run rooms together, um, do like a little relay. I mean, we were running rooms for hours a day, even overnight through the night, and we'd relay. I'd do half an hour, then one of the other squad half an hour, another squad half an hour, and then when it came to, um, nighttime in the UK and daytime in the US, our US mod squad— Emily Lyons, Carmelia, uh, Ray, etc.— would take over. And, um, it's really opened my mind now that all of us are collaborators. I see no one as competition and everyone as collaborators. I'm always open to a collaboration, a podcast episode together, a piece of content on TikTok or Facebook or a Clubhouse room together. You name it, I'm up to it. And Rachel has just asked, how many people do I get in the Clubhouse room? Well, it used to be anywhere between 800 5,000 on live, and then you could probably times that by between 5 and 10 depending on how long you ran the room as to how many would be in the room at any one time throughout the time. Now that's probably gone down by 4/5, 7/8, something like that. So I'd now say more— they might— my rooms peak at sort of 250, um, and you know, normally there's about 2,000 to 3,000 people on, but it is a moving feast. It does go up and down. But this is the real test now for Clubhouse. Their honeymoon period is over. Are they going to bring in all the new users? Are they going to control how many people can run rooms? Like in some new audio apps, they're restricting how many people can run rooms, and they're sort of doing a, a bit of a stress test and a screening of the creators. In Clubhouse, a good thing about it is anyone can run a room. A bad thing about it is anyone can run a room, um, you know, create content. So It's definitely an interesting space to be in. It's definitely disruptive and changing times. It's funny because Clubhouse was the great disruptor, uh, a year ago, disrupted Facebook. So many people left off Facebook and were pissed with Facebook and ran over to Clubhouse. And then what, in the last 3 to 6 months, there's new platforms now that are disrupting Clubhouse back, like Twitter Spaces, like Green Room did for a while, like Fireside is, like Facebook Audio Rooms has. Etc. All right, next then is, um, I just need to say it straight, many of us here wouldn't know each other if it weren't for Clubhouse. So even people who watch my Facebook Lives, TikTok Lives, and all these people on Clubhouse, 80% of us would not have met each other. We would not be connecting, collaborating, we would not be sharing information with each other were it not for Clubhouse. So Clubhouse has created many friendships, relationships, partnership commercial relationships, collaborations, which we should all be very grateful for. And I have over 20,000 people that have joined my Rob's Resources weekly newsletter. I've had probably 65,000 extra people from Clubhouse join and follow me on Instagram, for example. So yeah, you know, that's pretty good. And I wouldn't have had otherwise access to all of you. Um, and by the way, uh, there's not many channels that give you that ability because usually on a channel when you go live, it doesn't want you sharing any other channels. So for example, if I'm here on, um, Clubhouse and Face— sorry, TikTok and Facebook Lives and I put in Instagram links, my reach is going to be reduced. But on Clubhouse, they actually allow us to put our Instagram link on our profile. So when Clubhouse started, it was very open to involving other social channels. It didn't have a DM feature, so it used an integrated Facebook as the DM feature, which I thought was a really open-minded thing to do because I don't think TikTok or Facebook would necessarily do that. I'll give you an example. TikTok updated their algorithm recently, and they didn't tell you because they, they invited you to put your YouTube link on your bio on TikTok, and then they changed their algorithm and penalized you for putting your YouTube bio. Um, yeah, so Clubhouse at the start was really good for allowing us all to connect off-channel, Instagram, etc. Now, um, I want to do that with you because I want to make sure that we stay connected for many years. I want to make sure that if Clubhouse goes under, we can still communicate, because I do believe It is make or break time for Clubhouse. If its reach has reduced by 4/5 or 7/8 or whatever, then how is it going to grow back to its old size and scale of disruption? So if Clubhouse goes under, I'm going to have 285,000 people minus those that I've connected with off Clubhouse that I'm going to completely lose overnight. Like all of you listening in now on Clubhouse, if if you're not connected to me via email or via a— another social channel and Clubhouse dies, we've lost each other's contacts. And that's dangerous, um, because we need to communicate with each other. Otherwise we wouldn't be here with each other if we didn't want to communicate with each other. So I've got like a double, triple win here. So number 1, if you go to robmoore.com/pod— Rob Moore, my name, .com/pod. Go there right now, robmoore.com/pod. Benefit number 1: we can stay in touch with each other. If you're listening on my podcast or you're watching a live or you're listening on Clubhouse, if you go to robmoore.com/pod, what it means is we can now stay in touch with each other. You will get my email address, I will ask for your email address, and I will communicate you with you once a week on my Rob's Resources email. No selling, all value. Every week I update you on new resources I'm creating and collating. So go and do that right now. It's very important. I've just popped it in the link, so it's on the video in the comments. It's at the top of my Clubhouse room. It's really important you do that because I do think it's make-or-break time for Clubhouse. Now the next thing is, if you go to robmoore.com/pod, to incentivize you to share your contact details with me— just your main, main email, not phone number, but your main email. If you go there, I've got 4 gifts for you. Now, why would I give away gifts for free? Number 1, just to encourage you to stay connected with me. But number 2, I'm celebrating in a few days' time the 6th anniversary of my podcast, The Disruptive Entrepreneur. Now, I've got some big moves. I'm, I'm doing a rebrand of the podcast on the 6-year anniversary, uh, and, uh, I want to make sure that I'm back to number 1 in the charts. Just being honest, I think I should be. I've dropped that down the charts a bit because I don't really promote my podcast enough. So if you go to robmoore.com/pod right now, then when you pop your details in there, you'll see on the thank you page it just gives you 2 links: iTunes link to the Disruptive Entrepreneur Podcast and Stitcher or non-Apple link to the Disruptive Entrepreneur Podcast. All I ask for you, all I ask in exchange for all those bonuses and all this content I've shared with you is to just subscribe to my podcast, The Disruptive Entrepreneur, either on Apple or on whatever channel you are on. If you don't use Apple and iTunes, you use Samsung or any other device, you can subscribe on the second link, the Stitcher link. That's all I ask. Please do that for me if you've had any benefit and value in my content. And in exchange, I'm going to give you 19 ways to 10x your social media following. In 2021, I 10xed my social media following. I went from 500,000 to 1.1 million in 9 months, whereas it had taken me 7 years to build half a million followers. So that's about 10x in, in terms of time frame. Karen's just done it. She's just gone to robmoore.com/pod. There's also 20 ways to monetize social media and unlock all the monetization tools and features. Stars, badges, gifts, subscriptions, ads, sponsorships, you name it. And there's two other special bonuses. I don't want to just list them out because I want to crack on with the content, but go right now to robmoore.com/pod, pop your details in. We'll stay in communication with each other, which means if any of the platforms die, we're still connected. I do email you from my email that I reply to, by the way, and I see those emails. Susan's just done it as well. And then those free gifts, in exchange, all I'm asking is once you claim them on the thank you page, just subscribe to my podcast, The Disruptive Entrepreneur. In a few days' time, it's the 6th anniversary. I want to be back to number 1 in the charts. That's my motive for doing this and giving you these benefits and these gifts. And you'll see a big rebrand with some disruptive guests who I think you'll love. Okay, so number 5. When I started Clubhouse, I did not know what I was doing, and it was messy as hell. I was in other people's rooms trying to get on the stage, trying to chime in. It was a bit of a ding-dong, who could press the button first, people talking over each other. Didn't know if I was doing it right or wrong. I was pulled up on stages, didn't know what to do, felt a bit scared. Was I even credible? Yada yada, all these doubts. And I think all social media channels, when you start them, they're a bit messy. You don't really know what you're doing. Um, but start now, get perfect later. Go through that messy start where it's a bit chaotic, where you're not sure if you're doing it right. I did a Twitter Spaces room yesterday. I've only done 2, uh, and I had 4 people on it. Hey, look at me living the dream, um, considering I've got 1.1 million followers across social media and I had 4 people in my Twitter Spaces. And I'm like, I clearly haven't done this right, but at least I tried it. So start now, get perfect later. It's messy at the start. Learn on the go as you go, not before you go, and you will become successful on these social media channels as you figure them out. But you can't figure them out by not trying them. That's lesson number 5. Lesson number 6 of my 1-year anniversary on Clubhouse and Joe Rogan dissing it is that, um, when you learn content repurposing I think that you can use Clubhouse and other audio platforms, um, for great benefit. So I'm currently live on Clubhouse, Facebook Live, TikTok Live, and I'm recording an episode for the Disruptive Entrepreneur Podcast that will go live soon. So because you can't see me on Clubhouse, I'm able to use Clubhouse as content but repurpose across other channels. And I'm actually now considering testing going live on multiple audio platforms simultaneously. Clubhouse, Fireside, Green Room, Facebook Audio Rooms, and Twitter Spaces, and just figuring them out by being live on them all and, you know, watching and learning and testing and tweaking. But content repurposing, what it means is you can gain leverage of your time and you don't have to do unique content over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again on loads of different platforms just to gain reach. So you gain this omnipresence through content repurposing and multi-stream living. And just get a couple of old phones and a couple of little cheap stands and give it a try. Get yourself a little, um, podcast mic— a Zoom H1 costs virtually nothing— and try and create 5 pieces of content in 1 piece of content. And it was actually Clubhouse that really got me doing this properly. So that's a great benefit that I'm thankful for. And then my final point 7 of Clubhouse lessons from one year anniversary, despite Joe Rogan dissing it, is the rise of the audio platform. So Fireside Green Room Wisdom, Twitter Spaces, Facebook Audio Rooms, Speakeasy, you name it, there are a plethora now of many new upcoming audio platforms, probably all thanks to Clubhouse. So Clubhouse is the tide that has risen all the ships. And now it's created its own niche and its own competition. And the great thing about the audio platform is you can be in your pants, you can be anywhere in the world, you can just start some content. You don't have to worry about what you look like or the lighting. You can be listening in while walking, running, on the plane, on the train, in the gym, you name it. So it's a great multi-leverage, multi-purpose medium, the audio social media applications. And now Clubhouse has kicked off Fireside, Green Room, Wisdom, Twitter Spaces, Facebook Audio Room, Speakeasy. I just noticed this one called Zion that launched that I saw JP Sears promoting yesterday. I don't know if it's video as well as audio, but yeah, it's definitely disruptive, interesting. You know, do you remember Gremlins when Gizmo got covered in water and then all of a sudden all these other Gizmos popped off of him? Well, it's a bit like that in the audio space right now. So I want to thank you for tuning in. Make sure you go to robmoore.com/pod, P-O-D, to grab your special gifts from me because I'm celebrating a 1-year anniversary on Clubhouse, and I've become one of the top 100 followed people in Clubhouse in the world, and, you know, gained 285,000 followers and so many friends and collaborations. I've been interviewed on dozens of podcasts. It's lifted my Instagram up by 60,000. I mean, I'd had an Instagram account for 8 years and didn't even have 60,000. So Clubhouse has been amazing in loads of ways. Um, and so I'm celebrating my 1-year anniversary by giving you some gifts at robmoore.com/pod. The link is at the top, or just open up a new browser and type it in, my name dot com forward slash pod, P-O-D. And also, when the 6-year anniversary happens in a few days for the Disruptive Entrepreneur Podcast, Um, I, I— the reason I'm giving you these gifts and bonuses, which you can see on the page, is because, um, you know, I'd like you to help me get back to number one. I'd like to get as many new subscribers as possible. If you've listened to me or you're listening to me and you don't yet subscribe to The Disruptive Entrepreneur, please just go to robmoore.com/pod, pop your details in, and then on the, the redirect page, just click one of the links or both of the links and subscribe. If you're already listening to The Disruptive Entrepreneur, go and subscribe to it on the channel that you don't subscribe to it on. Like, if you're on Apple, go and subscribe on Stitcher on one of the links. Um, because look, this will, this will be a, a tide that lifts all of our ships, because the more successful my podcast is, the better guests I can reach, the better content I can do, the more I can reinvest into it. So it does help us all. But essentially, I'll just be honest, I'm bribing you with loads, showering you with gifts so that you'll help me, um, get back up the charts and subscribe to my podcast. So Rob Moore pod is the link. So right, I want to thank you on Facebook for tuning in. Remember, if you don't risk anything, you risk everything. And if you wouldn't mind, just hit the share button if you think that my content is useful to you.