Clubhouse is going wide. Co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth announced today that the app is no longer invite-only. Around 10 million people are currently on the waitlist, a spokesperson confirms, and they’ll slowly be added to the app over time. (Essentially, millions of users won’t be added today, but seemingly, if you attempt to sign up anew, you’ll be able to do so.) Along with the news, Clubhouse showed off a new logo, as well as a new app icon: Justin “Meezy” Williams, rapper 21 Savage’s manager.
“The invite system has been an important part of our early history,” a blog post about the changes says. “By adding people in waves, welcoming new faces each week in our Wednesday Orientations, and talking with the community each Sunday in Town Hall, we’ve been able to grow Clubhouse in a measured way, and keep things from breaking as we’ve scaled.”
This change comes only a week after Clubhouse launched its DM product, Backchannel, which the team now says saw 10 million messages sent within the first day of launch, and more than 90 million over the first week.
Of course, the app opening up comes amid increasing competition. As Clubhouse built out its product and acquired a waitlist, other social audio products, like Twitter Spaces, opened to everyone. If Clubhouse wants to compete, and keep acquiring new users, it’ll have to make sure everyone can actually access it. Part of that journey was bringing the app to Android, in addition to iOS, and now it’s completed the second major step, which is removing any gating around new user signup.
