Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison: What does Clubhouse do now to regain mindshare? | | 20VC #929

1. 0:00 – 0:32

   Intro

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      (beeping) Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination. Paul, this is such a joy to do. I've wanted to do this one for a long time. We've known each other for quite a while now. But thank you so much for joining me first.

   2. PDPaul Davison0:18

      Thank you for having me, Harry. I've listened to many episodes, so I'm very excited to be here.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:21

      That is so funny. Bubba was like, "Ask him how he has so much energy all the time." Um, but I mean-

   4. PDPaul Davison0:27

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings0:27

      ... I'm gonna save that for a bit later in this show. I wanna start with, um, basically the founding

2. 0:32 – 4:10

   The founding of Clubhouse

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:32

      of Clubhouse.

   2. PDPaul Davison0:33

      (laughs)

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:33

      Obviously a name we all know and recognize today. Take me back to that founding aha moment for you. And, and when, what was that aha moment?

   4. PDPaul Davison0:40

      You know, Rohan, my co-founder, and I had been building social apps for over a decade now, so we've been at it for a while. And we've always been interested in this problem space. You know, uh, the first company I started was a location-based social network called Highlight that helped you learn more about the people around you. And the whole thesis behind it was that the, the people in our lives, the people we become friends with, the people we marry, the people we do things with, the people we start companies with, they're the most important thing in the world. Nothing affects our lives and our happiness more than the people around us. But the way that we learn about people and the way that we decide how to bring new people into our lives and get to know them is just incredibly random and inefficient. And I didn't even realize that there were thematic similarities to Clubhouse till someone pointed it out to me on, on the app in Clubhouse. Um, but, but we'd been working on this stuff for a long time. Uh, eventually, we sold Highlight to Pinterest and I spent some time there, and Rohan was working on social apps as well. And we reconnected in late 2019 and we sort of said, "Man, we've always wanted to work together. Timing is liming- lining up right now. Let's do it. What should we build?" Obviously, we're not gonna do a consumer social app 'cause those things are crazy (laughs) and we love them so much, but we've got kids and, like, it's probably not a rational thing to do. So we were looking at education, productivity, and enterprise and all sorts of other stuff. And we started to get deeper into audio, and we were looking at it going, "Man, we love this space so much." Like, we love podcasts like yours. We, we love audiobooks. And I think most importantly, we love having conversations with our friends and, and it's really hard to do that right now. And, uh, we were looking at what the state of the art was, and at the time, it was basically podcasting, which is great for listening, but it's not great for participating and it's, it's a lot of work. And, and it felt like it was gonna grow quickly as a space because of AirPods and Alexa and text-to-speech and all sorts of other stuff. So as we got deeper into it, we eventually said, "Ah, shoot. We have to build a social app and..." (laughs) And I remember going back to my wife, we've been together since high school, and, and I'm like, "So I'm really sorry, but we're gonna build another social app." And she's like, "I think that's great. I know you love it and that's what you should be doing." So we sort of time boxed it. We said, "Okay, we'll give ourselves six months to try and make this thing work. And if it doesn't work, we'll go do something more boring where there's a more predictable relationship between input and output." And the first thing that we did, I think, um, I think we might have reached out to you at this time, Harry.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings3:04

      Yeah.

   6. PDPaul Davison3:04

      We, we had this app called Talkshow, which was, like, a more formal precursor to Clubhouse. It was a bit more broadcasty and, um, you know, we built it in a few weeks. There were hints of magic to it, but we didn't believe that it was gonna be durable. It didn't seem like a place where people could go to discover content and hang out and talk, and so we killed it after about six weeks and we moved the pieces around. And we launched the first version of Clubhouse, and you asked about the aha moment. Uh, it, it just kind of worked from the early days. And, and I can tell you more about why I think that happened. And, you know, we worked really hard to give it the right conditions to grow, but I think pretty early on at Clubhouse, it, it just worked. And I think Rohan and I were probably the last ones to admit that something was working with the product (laughs) because we'd been doing this stuff for so long that you just, you naturally try and become your own worst critic.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings3:59

      But, but, but, but-

   8. PDPaul Davison4:00

      But I think from the early days, we, we kind of felt there was-

   9. HSHarry Stebbings4:02

      ... Before we get to why it worked, I do just wanna ask, I place a lot of value on serial entrepreneurship and the lessons that come from it. You mentioned the time with Highlight

3. 4:10 – 7:25

   What did you learn from building Highlight?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings4:10

      there and the 10 years before building in consumer social. What did you do with Highlight that you took with you to Clubhouse? What did you do that you did not take with you? How did it impact your building of Clubhouse?

   2. PDPaul Davison4:22

      Oh, man. I think there's a lot that I did not take with me intentionally. (laughs)

   3. HSHarry Stebbings4:28

      Yeah.

   4. PDPaul Davison4:28

      I mean, I loved Highlight. I loved it. It's a story for another time. But you learn so much. You know, it's, it's, um, it's not a rational thing to keep, like, going back to the table with consumer social stuff. But one thing that has been heartening is that I do feel like you get better at it over time. Right? You, you learn to pattern match. You learn things like not to over-build, not to spend a ton of time on some secondary or tertiary screen that, that no one's really gonna visit. You learn that tactical growth hacky things aren't really gonna make your product work. That's not the right thing to focus on, so we, we talk about durability a lot. And, um, y- you know, you just kind of get better at the craft. You're never... You know, you've always got so much more to learn, but, but you pattern match. I, I think the most important thing, though, is that you learn how to build a company the right way. And again, it's an area where I've got a lot to learn. But Rohan and I spent a lot of time before we decided to build Clubhouse aligning on values. We, we sort of said, "Okay, if we're gonna do this, we're going to keep the team really small. We're not gonna raise money unless we really think something's working and we think we need to raise money. And we're gonna move really quickly, because that's a huge advantage that you have as a startup. But we're gonna move quickly not by taking on everything and burning everyone out and working 20 hours a day and, and doing everything poorly. But we're gonna move really quickly by hiring experienced people who know what they're doing." You know, our... Most of our people are, have done it before. They're, they're a- at the top of their game in their, in their field, in their craft. They're brilliant. They're humble. And that makes such a difference. You know, it's the best team that I've ever worked with.And in order to build out a, a, a team like that, I think you have to, you, you have to try really hard to, to be transparent with them about everything, to be pro-employee in every decision that you make. You know, you don't build a great company by nickeling and diming and, and, and trying to, like, optimize how much equity you retain. Y- you have to kind of try and do the right thing even when no one's looking, and you have to be smart about how you execute as a team. So we have a set of operating principles, things like, you know, 80/20 and, and respect for sequencing and, and if something's not gonna change the answer, don't bother doing the analysis and no points for packaging on internal stuff and type one versus type two decisions, frameworks that allow you to move faster. And so, um, you know, when I look back at how I ran Highlight versus how I run Clubhouse, the- there's a lot that you take with you. And, and we've got a lot more to learn and a lot that we can get better at, and the team helps us get better every day, but I think that's the most important thing. If you can attract incredible, brilliant, humble people and, uh, get them to want to work together to build this thing, I, I think that makes all the difference in the world. And I think really good people respect a company that tries to act in a principled way.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings7:23

      Can I be blunt?

4. 7:25 – 10:00

   Advice for first time founders building a team

   1. HSHarry Stebbings7:25

   2. PDPaul Davison7:25

      Yeah.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings7:25

      Um, you founded Highlight. You sold it to Pinterest.

   4. PDPaul Davison7:28

      Yeah. Yeah.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings7:28

      You then worked at Benchmark.

   6. PDPaul Davison7:29

      Yeah.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings7:29

      You had the experience in the network to hire those people and you had the pedigree. If you're a normal founder who doesn't have the Benchmark EIR, the acquisition by Pinterest, (laughs) good luck hiring your very, very experienced, very, very seasoned operators that early. It, uh, it doesn't happen.

   8. PDPaul Davison7:48

      Yeah.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings7:48

      Do you... What would you say to them?

   10. PDPaul Davison7:50

       I, I think that's absolutely true. Um, a couple things I'd say. One is, um, we didn't actually build up the team at Clubhouse until we felt that there was real traction there, that we really needed to build out a team. So when we did our series A, the company was two of us. Rohan was doing all the engineering, I was doing all the pixels and we would collaborate a lot on product. It was just us, you know, banging on things in our basement for months, and I think that's really helpful. Like, don't scale the team until you need to. I think if you need to raise a team earlier, having some sort of prototype, having something that you can show them, I think that's... that goes really, really far. And I think if you're scrappy, you can find a way to do that. And, um, the way that you, uh, find people who wanna build something with you is, number one, work on something that you love. And I feel so grateful that I get to work on something that I love. And again, it's not always a (laughs) rational thing to do. Um, but that's been one principle I've always sort of had is, is I'm, I'm, I'm gonna try really hard if I can to work on something that I love because then you just wanna talk about it all the time, you wanna think about it all the time. When you go to talk with potential co-founders, potential teammates, potential investors, it shows that you are so excited about this thing. You could tell the story better. And I think being able to tell a story well is so important as a founder, right? It, it, it's, it's helpful for building the team, for recruiting, for fundraising, for closing business deals, for doing M&A, and, and so really investing in that goes a long way. And the last thing I'd say is that you are absolutely right that, that access is not evenly distributed. And, and that's something that I really hope Clubhouse can change. It's part of the reason why we built this thing, this idea that no matter where you live in the world, no matter how much money you have or what sort of networks you have access to, you can suddenly be in the room and you can meet people who are interested in the stuff that you're interested in and, um, y- you know, you can share ideas, you can explore things together, you can build things together. I think technology is going to allow more and more of that to happen and I hope we can be a part of it.

5. 10:00 – 14:22

   What were the signs Clubhouse was working?

   1. PDPaul Davison10:00

   2. HSHarry Stebbings10:00

      So you mentioned that, you know, two of you when you raised the series A, and actually it was then that you realized that something was working. What were the signs that you knew that it was working and that actually-

   3. PDPaul Davison10:11

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings10:11

      ... product market fit tick and it was time to ramp?

   5. PDPaul Davison10:14

      Yeah. You know, um, we look at the stuff that you would expect us to look at, like retention numbers. Um, that, that's really the big thing that we always come back to, is retention and engagement. But i- if you think about it from a, uh, from a more zoomed out view, when we launched Clubhouse, it was quite simple. It was a single room. The whole app was a single room. There was no audience. Everyone was a speaker. There was no follow graph. Everyone followed everyone and you couldn't change that. And so you'd come in and you, you got invited into this thing, you'd come in and you'd see your friends there hanging out and you didn't even realize that your friends were there hanging out without you. And you'd see friends of friends and people that were in your extended network and you'd talk with them and you'd laugh and you'd hang out and you would spend hours doing that. It... And, uh, you know, it, it really mimics that real world behavior of, of hanging out with friends. It just takes it online. And I think that that core experience works. I think people love it. People stay for hours, they come back all the time. They spend dozen hours, dozens of hours a week on it and they tell their friends about it and those friends want to join and I think word of mouth is the best way for a product to grow, right? And, and my fundamental belief is that the best communication products, they don't invent new behaviors. They take what we are wired to do as humans, what we love doing and they make it easier to do it instantly with anyone. And this predates the internet, right? Like, think about the telephone. Before the telephone, I could only speak to people who were within earshot. That's crazy. Like, I could yell and they'd hear me 50 feet away, but that was it. And then we got the telephone and suddenly I could sit here and I could talk with people all over the world. And, and before video, we could only see things that were line of sight and now I can see through buildings and, and across continents and I can see you here today. And if you think about the internet, what that did, it only accelerated that, right? With, with Amazon, we always knew that we had to go shop and buy things and it allowed us to do it instantly with infinite selection on, on the internet. Why did Tinder work? It worked because people love to date, but now suddenly you could do it with, uh, without getting rejected and you could do it from anywhere. Why did Zoom work? We have to have business meetings, but now you can do it from anywhere. And with Clubhouse, it's the same principle in my mind. It's hanging out.... it's talking with friends and friends of friends and having good conversations, but now you could suddenly do that instantly. Um, but I do think that when these products take off, all the ones I named and, and other ones, there's usually a why now moment, right? Like, like if you think about Facebook, uh, you know, people suddenly had cell phones but there was no way to look up people's cell phone numbers and, you know, that was one of the big factors, I think, that, that made it take off at Harvard. When you think about Twitter, it was probably unlimited texting plans and, and a few other things. When you think about Instagram, we just suddenly got mobile photos, but they, they were slow and they weren't very high quality and we needed a better way to share them. Tinder, you had Facebook Connect and background location and, and I think with Clubhouse, there was a why now. I think it was, um, AirPods. Uh, I think it was Alexa, I think it was text-to-speech. I, I think COVID accelerates, uh, remote living. But I, but I just fundamentally believe that technology takes offline behavior that we love doing already and it makes it dramatically easier. There's usually a why now where there's sort of like a five-year window where it becomes possible to take a new experience online. And i- inevitably some company is gonna come along with the right combination of timing and execution on the exact details and a lot of luck, and they will be the one to grow. And, and so, um, you know, in our case, the growth was a lot faster than we had expected or planned for. But, um, but I think the reason it works is 'cause people love hanging out with, with friends and meeting their friends.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings14:04

      I mean, the growth was insane, and if there's one thing that I get criticized for, Paul, um, well, many things. I was-

   7. PDPaul Davison14:10

      (laughs)

   8. HSHarry Stebbings14:10

      .... I was on a terrible time with that. Um, but one thing really is that I'm too soft, uh, apparently. Uh, Twitter loves to tell me I'm too soft.

   9. PDPaul Davison14:18

      (laughs)

   10. HSHarry Stebbings14:18

       Um, (laughs) never liked them anyway. Uh, but I, I promise

6. 14:22 – 18:00

   Why has Clubhouses numbers decreased?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings14:22

      not to be and so-

   2. PDPaul Davison14:23

      (laughs)

   3. HSHarry Stebbings14:23

      ... you know, obviously we had this hockey stick growth and then, I'm being direct-

   4. PDPaul Davison14:27

      Yeah.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings14:27

      ... we had this decline. Um, and I wanted to talk about the reasons for the decline before we talk about the future. Number one reason for decline, which I often think to, is, as you mentioned, COVID there, and the consumer behavior. We were fucking lonely, we were bored, and we were (laughs) isolated, and we were given this drug of Clubhouse which made us not lonely and not bored. My question to you is, was Clubhouse the COVID antidote and was it a short term consumer behavior change?

   6. PDPaul Davison14:57

      I think that COVID is temporary but remote living is permanent. And, um, a- and what you see over time is that we have offline experiences and then online complements come and they're not as high fidelity but they have other advantages and over time they get better and they take share from offline, and then they expand the market for it. And I think, you know, like I was saying shopping it was Amazon and, and dating was Tinder and, and meetings w- it was Zoom, and, and I think friendship and hanging out and, and being with people is gonna go the same way. Uh, we're a funny company. Right? Like, we... (laughs) We tried really hard to grow slowly and, and we succeeded for nine months. Right? The reason we had the invite model is because it was two of us and, and we didn't wanna grow too quickly 'cause things break. The, the reason we didn't do press was because we didn't want to grow too quickly. Um, you know, six months after the series A, the company was still probably like seven of us, eight of us, and then we had a couple months where we just grew like 10X every month, and, (laughs) and, and that does a couple things. Right? The first thing is it gives you two months of silly download numbers that, (laughs) that every-

   7. HSHarry Stebbings16:11

      (laughs)

   8. PDPaul Davison16:11

      ... everyone will compare the company to. Um, but it also stresses the system. Right? The, those numbers, uh, during those couple months, they looked really good on paper, but we weren't giving people a good experience. It was a terrible experience. You try and use the app and it hadn't been built to, to support that level of scale. So everything is breaking, you're getting error messages, the app is crashing, it's in the wrong language, and I think more generally, that community that we had worked hard to build got too big, which made it really hard to find relevant people if you joined six months after we had started. Right? But, but it was a very important time for the company because a subset of those people somehow managed to find their way through the madness and, and find their friends and find their people and find their communities, and those people started to form the core of the community that we have today. So, millions of people from all over the world, doctors and writers and poets and, and TikTokers and pizza makers and, and truckers and physicists and, and students in Kentucky and, and people in the Maldives and comedians in LA. It's the best community that I've ever known in my entire life. And, and, and somehow they persisted and found it. And our goal is, is not to grow 10X per month. That is never gonna be sustainable, that's never gonna be a good experience for any product. Our goal is to take the foundation that we have, the incredible foundation that we have, stay heads down building, and just make it better and better every week. You know, so COVID-

   9. HSHarry Stebbings17:54

      What is wha- wh-

   10. PDPaul Davison17:54

       ... absolutely accelerates remote living, um, but I think remote is permanent and I think people wanna hang out

7. 18:00 – 20:06

   What are the guiding metric of Clubhouse?

   1. PDPaul Davison18:00

      with friends.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings18:01

      What is the north star metric then? Is it the amount of sessions that people join? Is it the amount of time they stay for in the session? Is it the amount they host? What is the guiding metric which determines the success of a user on Clubhouse?

   3. PDPaul Davison18:13

      I think we mostly look at retention, and we look at input metrics for stuff that we're s- su- for stuff that we're launching. So, um, engagement like you're talking about, that, that matters a lot. You know, our average person, if you join a room on Clubhouse on, on average you're there about 70 or 80 minutes a day.30 to 40% of people are talking, depending if you look on a weekly or a daily basis. So it's really, really participatory. But the thing that you wanna optimize for is retention. If you can build a retentive product that people love, then you're going to grow, I believe.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings18:45

      Wha- what's... Sorry, what's the right retention numbers? I, I had lunch with, you know, one of my successful consumer social investors of all time just now, and he was like, "L- Harry, you need to look at the 12-month retention numbers." And I was like, "12 months? Fucking hell, that's a long time."

   5. PDPaul Davison18:58

      (laughs)

   6. HSHarry Stebbings18:59

      I was looking at six months, so I felt like shit. Like, what retention numbers to you are indicative enough of stickiness?

   7. PDPaul Davison19:05

      I think that you, um... So I think that 12-month retention is great, but you also need to learn really quickly. And so I think D1 retention is usually a good predictor of D7, and once you get to D30, if something is sticking by D30, it, it, it usually sticks pretty well. Right?

   8. HSHarry Stebbings19:22

      What is good for D30? I remember seeing Snap have like 35%.

   9. PDPaul Davison19:26

      Yeah.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings19:26

       What, what's good for D30?

   11. PDPaul Davison19:28

       So, so different companies define it in different ways. If you define D30 as what percent of people who installed the app on D0 physically open the app on the 30th day, not on the week that follows, but on that day, I think north of, uh, north of 20% is good, 50% is great.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings19:46

       Yeah, I got you. What was yours?

   13. PDPaul Davison19:48

       (laughs) We don't talk about our internal metrics.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings19:52

       Am I not allowed to ask that? (laughs)

   15. PDPaul Davison19:54

       You can ask it, that's fine. (laughs)

   16. HSHarry Stebbings19:57

       A- a- always worth a try. Um, okay, so th- we, we discussed over there. The other one, uh, that I actually spoke to Mike Maggiano about, which is obviously the founder of Anchor-

   17. PDPaul Davison20:05

       Yeah.

8. 20:06 – 23:10

   Live vs on-demand audio

   1. PDPaul Davison20:06

   2. HSHarry Stebbings20:06

      ... um, uh, years ago-

   3. PDPaul Davison20:07

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings20:07

      ... is he said, "The thing I learned is live does not work, Harry. Um, people want on demand. Uh, people wanna listen in their own time." Why do you think that's wrong?

   5. PDPaul Davison20:18

      Yeah, I, I think that that's generally right for content, right? Mike's great and, and I think his, um, his background, he usually works more in content and, and Mike, Mike He's great. Um, I, but I think he's generally right for content. Right? News is an exception, where you wanna talk about what's breaking, what's happening right now. I think sports is an exception, where, where you need to know who the winner is. Another exception is interactive content. Like if you think about a Zoom concert wouldn't be really fun, because the experience of being there is such a part of it, it's a sensory experience. Being able to look at other people in the audience and see that they also know all the lyrics and they're just as excited as you are, that, that matters. And there's some online experiences where you're in the chat, talking with other people, you might interact with the speakers. So, so interactive can be an exception. And I do think there's something qualitatively different about live that we don't, we don't really understand. Like if y- I'm sure you've had the experience in the past where you're in the car and a song comes on the radio that you like, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, you've gotta listen to this." But you wouldn't open up Spotify and listen to it in the moment, even though you could. There's something about live that feels special. But generally I think Mike's right and you're right, live for content is really hard. From my perspective, Clubhouse is not about content. Clubhouse is about talking. Right? And like, like I was saying, 70 to 80 minutes a day people are in these rooms and, and 30 to 40% of them are talking. They're, they're hanging out with people. They're, they're, they're there being with friends and meeting friends of friends. I think it would be a bad strategy to try to compete, um, for passive content. You know, because I think what you're saying about live is right.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings22:03

      So you don't... So I, I guess my question is like I, I always view like, you know, the ultimate currency is the consumer's time.

   7. PDPaul Davison22:09

      Mm-hmm.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings22:09

      That is the currency that I compete for and which is why I compete against games, in, in my mind. I compete against Netflix. It's not just, you know, Invest Like The Best. Um, (laughs) -

   9. PDPaul Davison22:19

      (laughs)

   10. HSHarry Stebbings22:19

       ... there's many other things that we compete against. Love you, Patrick.

   11. PDPaul Davison22:23

       (laughs)

   12. HSHarry Stebbings22:23

       Um, but my point being there, like, who do you compete against then? 'Cause like y- are you competing against a phone call with my mom or are you... You are competing with podcasts still though, aren't you? With content.

   13. PDPaul Davison22:34

       I think it depends, it depends on what the person is looking for. There are people that open up Clubhouse to listen. But I think the, the most magical experience, the thing that people, when you talk with people who love, love, love Clubhouse, like the, the millions of people in the core community, what they love it for is the people that they meet, the friends that they're hanging out with, the conversations that they have. And, um, at the end of the day, everyone is competing for time. That's true. But there are certain contexts, certain times during the day where I feel like passively listening or passively watching videos. And there are other times where I feel like hanging out and talking with people. And I think Clubhouse competes more on the

9. 23:10 – 27:50

   Media loves to build up to tear down

   1. PDPaul Davison23:10

      latter.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings23:11

      I totally get you.

   3. PDPaul Davison23:12

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings23:12

      Can I ask you a blunt question, Paul?

   5. PDPaul Davison23:13

      Yeah.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings23:14

      Um, there is this unbelievable ability for us today to build up these heroes in technology.

   7. PDPaul Davison23:20

      Yeah.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings23:20

      And the desire to do that is so we can then smash them. As bluntly many media people have liked to do with Clubhouse, they've liked to do with Hopin and many other companies. Um, uh, h- how does it feel? (laughs)

   9. PDPaul Davison23:33

      I think you have to have a thick skin if you're gonna do startups. You know, I, um, I think y- I, I think that's something that I've kind of (laughs) developed over the years, because I think in the earlier days when I was doing Highlight, I would take it, I would take it really personally. Right? Like, I remember someone wrote us an email one time, uh, when it was just two of us at Highlight, and they, they were like, "F you for not having an Android app." And we're like, "Geez, it's just two of us and we're trying hard." (laughs) Um, and, and I think that, uh, I think you just have to have a thick skin or else you're just gonna crumble. Right? I, I feel... Personally, I feel that... I, I really admire entrepreneurs. I really admire people who take a swing. And it's, it's so easy to, to, you know, try to dunk on people and shit on people and say why something can't be done, but I get personally really inspired by the people that, that, that are out there trying. Right? Like, I read this book on the Wright brothers a while back and it... You know, it was like 100 years ago. It wasn't that long ago. But they're, they're, you know, sitting there on the ground-... looking up at the sky going, "I'm gonna figure out how to make man fly." And, and everyone who was trying it just died. (laughs) Like so many people just died. It was so dangerous. And everyone was just, like, laughing and saying it couldn't be done. But I think the people that really moved things forward are the ones that, that are building stuff and trying stuff. And so I, I try to celebrate that and, and we try to celebrate that as a team and, and have my kids learn to value that sort of thing. But the reality is, when you're trying, like, you're gonna, you're gonna (laughs) , y- y- you're gonna have to deal with that, right? And, um, I think the only response is to have a thick skin and to just stay focused, heads down, building, right?

   10. HSHarry Stebbings25:22

       I, uh, it makes me think of the r- I think it's the Roosevelt quote which is like, you know, credit goes to the man-

   11. PDPaul Davison25:25

       Yeah, the man of the arena.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings25:27

       ... not the fool. Yeah, exactly.

   13. PDPaul Davison25:28

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings25:28

       Love that. Uh, my, my question to you is, I get that you are a seasoned entrepreneur, you have a thicker skin. You're also just more mature as a person, bluntly. Uh, you wouldn't know it looking at us, but-

   15. PDPaul Davison25:39

       (laughs)

   16. HSHarry Stebbings25:39

       ... me, I'm a little bit younger than you and I'm on the Clubhouse team say-

   17. PDPaul Davison25:43

       (laughs)

   18. HSHarry Stebbings25:43

       ... I do h- not have such a thick skin. How do you maintain morale in leadership when there is negative press cycles? And although you're good, you need to uphold your team and instill that fighting confidence in them.

   19. PDPaul Davison25:56

       Yeah.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings25:56

       How do you do that as a leader?

   21. PDPaul Davison25:58

       I think it's, um, I think it's really challenging. It's one of the bigger challenges of building a company when you're, uh, when it's not a linear path. Right? Um, and, uh, you know, one other thing I would say about having, having personal perspective on it, I, I feel immensely grateful that w- I live in a world where I get to spend time building something I love. That's insane. Right? How blessed and fortunate, uh, do you have to be to get to spend your time doing that? So I think having that perspective is important. I think kids changed my perspective too. You kind of don't worry as much about, about Silicon Valley nonsense and, and you kinda know what matters and, and, um, but I think for the team, it's hiring, it's hiring really great people, um, and talking openly about it. Right? And sort of saying, like, I, I think good people really respect transparency. They don't want you to sugarcoat stuff. They, they don't want you to bullshit them. They, they want you to be straight with them. And the reality is startups are not a linear path. If you look at most social platforms that have eventually succeeded, they went through some messy middle period and some didn't make it and, and some did. And, um, so we sort of tell them, "Here's where we think we are. Here's what we know. Here's what we think works. Here's what we think, um, the, the, the right next step is. Um, if you disagree, like, please tell us." We l- like, we talk a ton about product as a team, but I think just honesty and transparency and being able to explain what you think the, the mission is and, and why you're so excited about it, I think that, that tends to resonate with people. And, um, and that's what we try and do. You know? I- it's, and it's, it's again, something that you learn as an entrepreneur over the years. (laughs) Right?

   22. HSHarry Stebbings27:49

       I,

10. 27:50 – 30:31

    Was the Twitter offer tempting?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings27:50

       I, I'm, I'm pushing the boundaries here of acceptability so you shoot me down by all means.

    2. PDPaul Davison27:54

       Yeah, yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings27:55

       Um, I, I did think w- was it tempting with the Twitter offer?

    4. PDPaul Davison28:00

       (laughs) Um, I can't comment on that. But, um-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings28:06

       (laughs)

    6. PDPaul Davison28:06

       ... but I will say that we, um, we, we, you know, we've thought a lot about how this world plays out and-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings28:17

       Mm-hmm.

    8. PDPaul Davison28:17

       ... who ultimately wins and what is the right to win. And I think that, um, I think what we're working on has the potential to really, really impact society in a big way. And, um, it, it feels obvious to me that this is going to exist. And I think the company that wins is going to be a company that is fully focused on the medium. Right? And maybe I'll be wrong, but if you look at history, that is how it has played out. New networks don't come along very often. They, they tend to happen when there's a new medium that emerges on the internet. And, um, historically, the company that has focused on that medium has tended to win. Like text was Twitter, photos was Instagram, video was YouTube and now TikTok, and I think spoken audio, talking, conversations, I think that's gonna be the same. And the reasons for that are, are really tied to the fact that when I use a product, when I use it, how I use it, so much of that is a function of the medium. If I'm using an app that is short form text or photos, I usually open it when I have 20 seconds to spare, I have two minutes to spare, I'm walking down the hallway, I'm waiting in line for a cup of coffee. I don't have AirPods in, I'm not looking to participate. The set of people who I follow are the people who are really good at that medium. The primary discovery service that the app opens to is dedicated to that medium. If it's on some secondary or tertiary screen, usage plummets. If it's not the company's most important reason for being, they shutter it when things get hard for them. The, the, the business model, the brand, all of it is tied to that medium. So I believe that, that the company who wins is gonna be a company that is fully focused on that medium. And, and I think that we're in a good position to do that. And we're fortunate that we raised a lot of money, uh, before the tech downturn. We, we've, we've built the best team that I've ever worked with in my entire life and our goal is to just stay heads down and, and focus on the product, focus on the community, and just make it better and better and better every week. And I think if you do that, uh, it puts you on a good path.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings30:20

       How much runway do we have?

    10. PDPaul Davison30:22

        We have years of runway right now.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings30:24

        That's always helpful.

    12. PDPaul Davison30:25

        Yeah.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings30:26

        Um-

    14. PDPaul Davison30:26

        And that assumes no revenue.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings30:27

        Nice.

    16. PDPaul Davison30:27

        We've got, we've got a lot.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings30:29

        Nice. That's perfect. I do, I

11. 30:31 – 32:43

    Social graph vs recommendation media

    1. HSHarry Stebbings30:31

       do wanna talk, you mentioned kind of the medium there.

    2. PDPaul Davison30:33

       Yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings30:33

       And I think one thing that we've seen is actually kind of the disregard for the social graph, which we've all hailed for so many years.

    4. PDPaul Davison30:41

       Right.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings30:41

       And you see this across Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, towards this... And I think Minyana does this well, which is like the d- disregard for that and the praising now and the complete movement towards kind of recommendation media and really all companies being machine learning discovery platforms for media. Um, and TikTok really kind of pioneering that. Um, do you agree with that?

    6. PDPaul Davison31:02

       I think there's some truth to that for content platforms, but I don't think Clubhouse is a content platform. Um, and, and so the, the way that I think about it is you have kind of a spectrum from, from communication products like messenger apps to, to media products, and they all operate pretty differently. So with Clubhouse, uh, I think that some of that applies. Like the, the real core of Clubhouse, it's, um, it's friends of friends. Like if you think about it, there are a lot of products that are private five person messenger products for people you already know, small groups of friends that know each other. There are a number of great products for big admin led community management, you know, Discord and Slack and like legacy Facebook groups. I think the world tends to operate around friends of friends. If you think about the best social experiences you've ever had, they've probably been times when you were hanging out with a few people that you knew and maybe some other people that you didn't know, but, but that you trusted because they were friends of your friends or because they also went to the same school or they worked at the same company, or they were at the same local bar and they live near you. And that's a really special thing in the world right now, and I think that hasn't fully come online yet. So if we can help connect you with your friends and, and serve that sort of presence layer where you can open up your phone anytime you want and just talk with a few friends and allow you to meet other people through your friends or perhaps through recommendations that you might not know yet, but you could become great friends with who care about the stuff that you care about, who could have great conversations with you,

12. 32:43 – 34:29

    What do you think of Twitter Spaces?

    1. PDPaul Davison32:43

       I think that's a really powerful thing.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings32:45

       So I, I'm an investor in BeReal and everyone is shitting on me 'cause I'm like, oh, BeReal has real defensibility. And everyone's like, oh, well any big consumer social company can just copy you. Um, so I thought, who else to ask but you, uh, for-

    3. PDPaul Davison32:57

       (laughs)

    4. HSHarry Stebbings32:57

       ... your advice, um, Twitter Spaces. Um, like how, what do you make of that? When I was listening, I was like, okay.

    5. PDPaul Davison33:05

       Yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings33:05

       Didn't, it kind of didn't, I don't know, it just didn't hit with me. And I, I don't know if they're still going with it. Maybe they still are. Um, in which case I'm just terribly out of touch.

    7. PDPaul Davison33:14

       (laughs)

    8. HSHarry Stebbings33:14

       Um, but like, how did you analyze the Twitter Spaces product move? What do you think?

    9. PDPaul Davison33:21

       Um, do you mean how do I think about Twitter Spaces in general?

    10. HSHarry Stebbings33:25

        Yeah. Like what do you think of the product? Do you think they've done well with it? Are you like, yeah, I respect them for that or are you like, ah, it's pretty shitty in that way actually. Like how do you guys internally evaluate Twitter Spaces and how they've done building it out?

    11. PDPaul Davison33:38

        I think that we've seen quite a few larger legacy networks build out audio products over the last year and a half.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings33:46

        Yeah.

    13. PDPaul Davison33:46

        And, um, you know, with varying degrees of success. I, I think that Twitter is doing what they've done in the past, which is helping people broadcast to other people. And, um, and I think that, you know, the, they've done a fine job at that and it's, it's pretty different from what I think we target at Clubhouse.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings34:09

        Yeah.

    15. PDPaul Davison34:09

        And, and I can talk more about the difference between those two in my mind, but, but I think it's a broadcast product.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings34:14

        So you think it's different, you think theirs is a content game?

    17. PDPaul Davison34:18

        I think it is much more so in that direction, yeah.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings34:21

        Gotcha.

    19. PDPaul Davison34:21

        You, you know, they recently combined it with podcasts in the podcast tab, I think. Uh, I think that's really what they're targeting is broadcast.

13. 34:29 – 41:05

    Rise of authenticity in social media

    1. PDPaul Davison34:29

    2. HSHarry Stebbings34:29

       Okay. I get you.

    3. PDPaul Davison34:30

       Yeah.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings34:30

       In te- I mean, that, that we mentioned BeReal. I mean, BeReal's kind of, um, premise is authenticity.

    5. PDPaul Davison34:36

       Yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings34:36

       Uh, how do you think about kind of the rise of authenticity in social, where we've kind of moved from this, um, you know, generation of kind of decadence and perfection to now we want selfies of our friends with no makeup looking terrible or me, you know, without coffee looking like an ogre in the morning. And that's cool now. (laughs)

    7. PDPaul Davison34:56

       (laughs)

    8. HSHarry Stebbings34:56

       I'm so confu- I feel like such an old man here, but I'm like, how do you think about the rise of authenticity and kind of that realness-

    9. PDPaul Davison35:06

       Mm-hmm.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings35:06

        ... integrated into the next generation of social?

    11. PDPaul Davison35:09

        I think authenticity is a means to an end. So when you provide a, a stress-free environment where people can be themselves, it helps build friendship and connection in the same way that for us, I think of audio as a means to an end. It allows you to hear nuance and intonation and tone without worrying about what you look like or how messy your house is. So, so I think authenticity is a means to an end, and that is why we built Clubhouse, right? We, we have actively seen more and more rooms going private and semi-private over time. So you on- you actually only see a fraction of what's happening on the Clubhouse network when you open the app and that's increasingly true over time. And, um, I think there's a lot of value in that, right? That, and they're just different products, right? Broadcast is one thing, and there are people that just want content that is not interactive. I think authenticity works with friends and friends of friends and, and people, uh, in, in situations where you want to build relationships with people, and that's a very powerful thing.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings36:10

        Yeah. You know, one thing I found interesting with Clubhouse, uh, we haven't spoken about this before, but like, it was the recording function. One thing I loved about Clubhouse and love about Clubhouse is like no one can hear me say it, so I can say whatever I want. And if you're in the room, you know, you hear me and fine.

    13. PDPaul Davison36:25

        Yeah.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings36:25

        I hope you don't tweet it.

    15. PDPaul Davison36:26

        Right.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings36:26

        But when it was recording, I was like, oh shit. I don't-

    17. PDPaul Davison36:30

        (laughs)

    18. HSHarry Stebbings36:31

        Do you know what I mean? Like, like, you know, I was very much on guard 'cause-

    19. PDPaul Davison36:34

        Yeah.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings36:34

        ... people can hear this.

    21. PDPaul Davison36:35

        Yeah.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings36:36

        How, how do you feel about like losing that authenticity with the introduction of recording and making that possible?

    23. PDPaul Davison36:43

        Yeah. So I think it is a, uh, I think it's a customer segmentation thing. I think that with Clubhouse, there are two sides to the platform. There, there is the broadcast side, right? There are people that are broadcasting. That's fantastic. That, that, that's the reason why people come to the app. They come to these rooms with their friends, they talk about those rooms in the in-between moments, but the majority of the network...... is people hanging out and talking, and those people are not recording their rooms. Uh, a- and I think it's fine for broadcast and, and, and hanging out, like conversation, to co-exist. Like think about Instagram, something like, I think, 40% of, of accounts are public and they want reach and followers and branded content and monetization, and something like 60%, I've heard, go private. And those people want something really different. They wanna share photos with their friends and they don't care about how many likes they have, they care about who liked it and what they said, and the interactions that they have there affect their real life friendships. So I'll say, "Oh Harry, I saw you went on vacation. That looked amazing. Where were you?" When we, when we hang out in person. And they work really well together. Like I'll follow some of these accounts and some of these accounts and the system kind of works. Clubhouse is very similar. So if there are people that wanna do broadcast, they can do that, but, but the majority of people are actually hanging out. And, and one thing that we've, that we've learned, which is kind of relevant to this is, you know, when we started Clubhouse, the whole entire experience was people hanging out, like you were, like you were mentioning. And in fact, it was only one community. And it's great, it's a magical experience when you know people there and you can meet friends of friends. But as that grows, it, it can stress the system, right? And, and I think that's, that's something that, um, that, that, that we sort of experienced in Clubhouse. And the way that communities really should grow, I believe, is through this process of mitosis, where when people feel they're getting too big, they can split off and form a new group. And this happens in the real world all the time, right? Like, you go to a house party, you're one of the first four people there, it's one circle of people in the living room. But if you come an hour later, there are six circles of people, and some are on the balcony and some are in the kitchen, and, and, and that's great. People split off so they can scale that intimacy. And, and with Clubhouse, I think it's really important that we can allow the people that don't want recordings to, th- that want the off-the-record conversations to, to, to have an experience that scales. And so right now, one of the things that we're doing is actually splitting the network up into many different networks. So anyone, any person, any group, any community can create their own private section within Clubhouse, called a house. And I think if you build the graph structure the right way and you set the defaults properly, you can actually allow the intimacy that you're talking about to scale, um, ar- to arbitrary sizes.

    24. HSHarry Stebbings39:31

        Speaking of kind of building the graph structure the right way, I remember once hearing Kevin Systrom say that like the best social products are fundamentally built on the foundations of giving creators or people tools to create that they didn't have before. You know, for Instagram it was beautiful filters, which made everyone a wonderful photographer.

    25. PDPaul Davison39:48

        Yeah.

    26. HSHarry Stebbings39:48

        Um, do you agree with that statement, that it starts with creator tools?

    27. PDPaul Davison39:53

        I think that it often does. There's a great quote that I will paraphrase and butcher, which is, "Virality is all about making your users look awesome in front of their friends." (laughs) And, and, um, constraints are really important in social media too. So I think there's a lot of truth to what Kevin is saying, and I have tremendous respect for Kevin. Uh, it depends on the type of product though. Like if you think about Tinder or LinkedIn, they're more people networks, and so sometimes the benefits come from, from liquidity. They come from making it dramatically easier to, to like connect with other people regardless of your location. I think, I think all information technology is about reducing friction, and I've always been amazed at how seemingly small reductions in friction have a massive impact on usage. And if you can make stuff easier to do, and if you can make it easier for me to look like I'm really good at this thing, that's even better. So I think there's a lot of truth to what he's saying.

    28. HSHarry Stebbings40:49

        I totally agree. Yeah. If they could do a thinning filter on Instagram, I'd be even more

    29. NANarrator40:53

        (laughs)

    30. PDPaul Davison40:55

        Totally.
14. 41:05 – 43:23

    Are you bullish on Web3?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings41:05

       for you to answer this one first, so it's not just me.

    2. PDPaul Davison41:07

       (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings41:07

       Uh, Web3, like w- w- what would it take for it to break through? Is it here for the long term? Is it sustainable or is this just another fad?

    4. PDPaul Davison41:16

       I'm, uh, I'm very long on crypto. I'm a strong believer. I think it's the right way for the internet to evolve. Right now we're, we're building an economy into Clubhouse. We're in the early stages of it, but hoping to have something out there in the not too distant future. And what I'd like to do, what we'd like to do is do it all on top of Web3 rails, but have it be completely under the hood. And, and I think with Web3, with, with crypto, like the, the challenge has been that the UX is just not there yet. But a lot of the core components that you need to do things like fiat on-ramp and, and custody and, and, um, you know, everything else, I think those will be coming online in the next six to nine months. And I feel that for products in general, the inflection point often comes when, when services get built on top of them without end users even realizing it, right? It's, it's when people build on top of it because it just allows them to do new things for the user and the user doesn't even have to know what's happening under the hood. Like an example that I often think about is Wikipedia. When Wikipedia came along, no one cared that it was built on the LAMP stack or, or even that it was a web-based encyclopedia. They cared that it was free instead of the $900 volume, y- you know, volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica on their bookshelf. They cared that it was free, that it was accessible from anywhere, and that it was constantly updating. And so I believe that in the medium to long term, we'll have products that are built on top of Web3 technology that are just better and it just becomes obvious that you should build on top of those 'cause, 'cause you can do things for consumers that you couldn't do before.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings42:57

       You know what, Paul? I agree with you. So long on Web3.

    6. PDPaul Davison43:00

       (laughs)

    7. NANarrator43:01

       (claps)

    8. HSHarry Stebbings43:01

       I've, I've also... I literally tweet you shit about Web3 and then my business partner's like trying to invest in Web3 companies and all the founder's like, "Harry fucking hates it." And I'm like, "Yeah, sorry."

    9. PDPaul Davison43:10

       (laughs)

    10. HSHarry Stebbings43:11

        ... terribly, terribly challenging. I listen to all the time.

    11. PDPaul Davison43:13

        Time, timing's a big thing, you know?

    12. HSHarry Stebbings43:15

        Timing is a big thing. Crucial. Um, uh, I wanna dive into a quick fire, my friend. So I say a short statement, you hit me with your immediate thought. Sound okay?

15. 43:23 – 43:55

    Favorite book and why?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings43:24

    2. PDPaul Davison43:24

       Yeah, yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings43:25

       Okay. So what's the favorite book and why?

    4. PDPaul Davison43:29

       Uh, I only do audiobooks. My wife makes fun of me 'cause I'll say, "Oh, I read this book," and she goes, "Listened to." Um, I don't have a single favorite. A couple good ones. Um, I really like, uh, Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems. He writes about physics, but it's very poetic. Um, I like The Information by James Gleick, which is about the history of literally information and how it travels and how we record it. Uh, those are a couple. I do mostly

16. 43:55 – 44:32

    Biggest thing you got right and wrong with Clubhouse?

    1. PDPaul Davison43:55

       like nonfiction and tech and science books.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings43:58

       What is the single biggest thing you got right with Clubhouse?

    3. PDPaul Davison44:02

       I think that we managed to concentrate liquidity and, and, uh, get people all in a single room at the same time and, and get a good community going. And, and the whole trick is, um, how do you repeat that for many, many, many communities at the same time?

    4. HSHarry Stebbings44:21

       What is the single biggest thing you got wrong with Clubhouse? (laughs)

    5. PDPaul Davison44:24

       I think we didn't hire fast enough.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings44:28

       Huh. What would you have hired sooner?

    7. PDPaul Davison44:31

       Engineers.

17. 44:32 – 45:17

    What’s the hardest part about your role with Clubhouse?

    1. PDPaul Davison44:32

    2. HSHarry Stebbings44:32

       (laughs)

    3. PDPaul Davison44:34

       (laughs)

    4. HSHarry Stebbings44:34

       Crucial. (laughs) What's the hardest element of your role with Clubhouse today?

    5. PDPaul Davison44:39

       Uh, I think building a remote team is really hard. I believe that the... I don't think it's practical to build a fully in-person company anymore. I don't wanna be fully distributed. And I think... You know, we went from nine people to 95 people over the course of a year. And building culture and communication and, and, and all the right working patterns in that environment is really tricky, especially when you're doing it-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings45:03

       Yeah.

    7. PDPaul Davison45:03

       ... in a very public way.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings45:05

       It's also like I, I, I, I, I, I do the same with funds at media companies. New people join you, you're like, "Are you happy?" Like-

    9. PDPaul Davison45:11

       (laughs)

    10. HSHarry Stebbings45:11

        ... "Are you enjoying it?" Like, "Did you have a good day?" And you have no idea whether they're miserable or, like,

18. 45:17 – 46:19

    How did you get Elon to join Clubhouse?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings45:17

       very happy. Um, I, I find that tough. Uh, how did you get Elon on Clubhouse?

    2. PDPaul Davison45:22

       We did not. Uh, the Good Time show did. Like, we, uh... All of the stuff that has happened on Clubhouse, the vast, vast, vast majority of it just, just happened totally organically, um, by the user community. The community is amazing. It's literally the best community I've ever experienced anywhere and all of the people that come on, all the moments that happen, it's all driven by the community.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings45:44

       Were you pissed when Mark and Ben went to YouTube?

    4. PDPaul Davison45:47

       (laughs) You mean when the Good Time show went YouTube?

    5. HSHarry Stebbings45:52

       Well, yeah, yeah.

    6. PDPaul Davison45:54

       I think the Good-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings45:55

       (laughs) Yeah, maybe.

    8. PDPaul Davison45:55

       I think YouTube's a great platform for people that want to do... uh, that, that wanna do broadcast. I think it's fantastic. Right? And, and you see Mike, uh, you mentioned has written about how a lot of podcasts and, and, uh, you know, podcast products are gonna go to video and go to YouTube. And I, I understand the reasons for that. I think it's a good thing to do.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings46:16

       Wonderfully graceful answer. Um,

19. 46:19 – 46:43

    If you could remove one thing from your daily schedule, what would it be?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings46:19

       if... (laughs)

    2. PDPaul Davison46:19

       (laughs) Thanks.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings46:21

       We're very different. If I could remove one recurring event from your calendar, my friend, what would it be?

    4. PDPaul Davison46:26

       Um, I have a recurring block to answer emails and that's the one I look forward to the least. (laughs) Rohan, my co-founder, I think the, the hardest I've ever made him laugh was I made a joke about not being inbox zero, I'm outbox zero. Um, I would remove that meeting

20. 46:43 – 48:45

    How to deal with hype

    1. PDPaul Davison46:43

       and not do it if I didn't have to.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings46:45

       What's your biggest advice to founders on dealing with the media and hype?

    3. PDPaul Davison46:49

       (laughs) Get advice from someone who's done a better job of it than I have. (laughs) No, I, I think you just have to have thick skin, right? Like, you lite- you literally just have to. If you don't, you will crumble anytime someone, you know, says something mean about you and it's gonna distract you. You gotta have thick skin and stay focused.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings47:07

       Did you believe the hype? I remember when there was like, you know, "Paul is Zuck and Clubhouse is Facebook." And I remember literally 'cause it was one weekend in particular when I, I literally got 25 calls from growth funds, everyone asking to buy my tiny, tiny investment. You know, it's, it's not big. (laughs) Um, but, I mean, it was like... it was fucking crazy. (laughs) Um, did, did you believe the hype then? It's hard not to.

    5. PDPaul Davison47:34

       I think it's really nice building this company when I have some experience and I've done this stuff before and, and like I'm older, honestly. Like, the nice thing about that is when things are crazy, crazy good, you're like, "Yeah, yeah, but it'll die down." When things are hard, you, you say, "Yeah, but we'll figure this out." You have so much perspective on it and you tend to be your own harshest critic, you tend to be the most skeptical. And, and that's why we, we didn't raise money for a long time. We're like, "Yeah, it seems like it's working, but we don't know if this will scale." And, um, I think perspective really helps with that.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings48:14

       You love all your angels equally. Which angel's been most helpful to you and why?

    7. PDPaul Davison48:19

       I think Bubba Marcato has probably been the most helpful. He's awesome.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings48:24

       Wh- why so? I mean, I chatted him before the show and loved him, but wh- why so?

    9. PDPaul Davison48:27

       Um, he is just... Like, anyone who has a chance to work with him should work with him. He's just endlessly supportive, there on a dime if you need him to do anything, really great to brainstorm on, on product ideas with, always has great crazy ideas. Um, he, he's just fantastic.

21. 48:45 – 49:56

    Biggest thing to break when growing Clubhouse

    1. PDPaul Davison48:45

       Like, absolutely phenomenal.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings48:47

       What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the start of Clubhouse?

    3. PDPaul Davison48:51

       Um, I wish, uh, I wo- I wish we had known when it would hit an inflection point and we would start growing really fast 'cause it's what I was saying before, like, I wish that we had built out the team sooner because then we would've been, uh, y- you know, like... thi- fewer things would break. (laughs)

    4. HSHarry Stebbings49:12

       What was the biggest thing to break?

    5. PDPaul Davison49:14

       (laughs) I mean, the, I think... In the near term, like the discovery for a few months was really broken, right? But, but I think in the long term, the problem that you have to solve is... Or, or sorry, the infrastructure, um, in the near term w- was broken for a few months. But I think in the long term, discovery is the biggest thing that you need to fix, right? If you suddenly have 10X, 100X as many people, how do you ensure that everyone gets in the right room at the right time without seeing a bunch of noisy rooms in their feed? And it's a process, right? You take a long-term view and, and you just kind of accept that a lot of people joined and had a bad experience. But, but millions of people made it through and you've got this core community and if you just focus on the long term, you,

22. 49:56 – 51:22

    Where is Clubhouse in 5 years?

    1. PDPaul Davison49:56

       you just grow that steadily every month over time.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings49:59

       Final one for you, Paul.

    3. PDPaul Davison50:01

       Yeah.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings50:01

       Clubhouse in five years, which is what, 2027-

    5. PDPaul Davison50:04

       Yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings50:04

       We do another show.

    7. PDPaul Davison50:05

       Yeah.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings50:05

       Where is Clubhouse then?

    9. PDPaul Davison50:08

       Our mission at Clubhouse is to increase friendship in the world, right? To, to create a place where you can be among friends, meet their friends, talk about anything, and, and we have a lot more to do to, to make sure everyone has that experience when they join. But, but in five years, my hope is that everyone listening to this uses Clubhouse whenever they want to talk with friends, whenever they want to have a good conversation. And, and by doing that, they, they've made a ton of new friends, they've learned, they've connected with people and, and they have a place where they can always just open their phone and, and they can feel at home. And, and I think that if we can do that, if we can fill everyone's life with, with fun and interesting people, no matter where you live, no matter where you work from, no matter what networks you have access to, I think that's a pretty amazing future to imagine.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings51:03

        Paul, I cannot thank you enough. Bubba, uh, was completely right on your energy. It is, uh, pretty- (laughs)

    11. PDPaul Davison51:08

        (laughs)

    12. HSHarry Stebbings51:09

        ... incredible to see. Uh, but I cannot thank you enough for being so open and forgive me for my prying questions. (laughs)

    13. PDPaul Davison51:15

        No, not at all. Thank you so much, Harry. I really enjoyed it.

Episode duration: 51:22