How to Build An App Like Clubhouse- An Audio Social Network App

Think Social Conversations. Think Clubhouse.

The Clubhouse has exploded onto social media and cornered the market with its excessive popular concept of live audio.

With the user base ranging from musicians, creators, authors, entrepreneurs, parents, sports fans, stock traders, comedians, and more… the app has effortlessly picked the interest of users from all niches and backgrounds.

Apparently, while the app was performing exceptionally well to entice users but the pandemic has been the major catalyst to spark its growth when people were stuck at home and were finding ways to share their emotions confidently.

The launch of Clubhouse has resolved this problem and swept a good number of audiences. Entrepreneurs can invest and strategize in this innovative idea by integrating a robust list of features to attain success.

The Clubhouse is an invite-only only voice-chat app that has covered a huge audience and succeeded in offering a wonderful user experience.

Are you excited to know the history of the Clubhouse app?

Scroll down the article to get detailed information about Clubhouse, its working process, the reasons behind its immense popularity, and the comprehensive stepwise process of developing an app like a clubhouse.

Read on!

What Is Clubhouse?

Clubhouse is an audio-based social networking app that is specially designed to help people carry group conversations easily on the topics of their interest. It allows people to create separate rooms so that speaker can take the lead as a room owner and audience can listen to it. The room owner can also allow other people to join in as a speaker.

The app promotes the significance of human interaction particularly when they are miles apart. In short, it is an audio-based entertainment app to connect with others in real-time by talking, listening, and learning from each other.

Why Clubhouse App Is Going Viral and Hailed as The Investor’s First Choice?

The hottest and latest audio-based social platform is driving people of all age crazy and making them frenzy. Fuelled by influencers to celebrities, the app has a dash of exclusivity that is attracting investors globally to blow billions of dollars and register users online.

The reasons behind the popularity of an app like Clubhouse are worth considering. With its unique and alluring features, the app development succeeded in taking a huge market share. Here are the features of attraction that is increasing the network of users and their acquaintances.

• The invite-only app ensures user authentication and verification making it a secured space to share the voice.
• The audio room option is where users can participate, invite their friends, or leave the room anytime.
• Allow users to listen or share their audio on different topics inside the rooms created.
• An interactive audio-only app removes the obligation of facing camera and come forth to share their voices.
• An interactive platform to create a network and connect with a large audience easily with specific user interest.
• It allows you to work at ease and convenience, further extending the platform’s popularity.

Apart from this, the other technical expertise that contributed to the app’s popularity are easy personal optimization, simple navigation and user interface, the TikTok like nature that picks users’ interests and create a highly interactive environment.

How To Develop An App Like Clubhouse?

Building an app like Clubhouse involves a few simple step procedures that need to be followed. Let’s check the below-mentioned points to make your idea work:

Carry Out the Market Research To Find Market Fit Product

Every successful idea is an outcome of the initial research that provides confidence to an individual to move ahead. So, before you jump into the development phase of the clubhouse like the app, it is necessary to check the viability of your product. Make sure to understand and identify the target audience, check the nearby demographics and check current related trends.

Also, while checking the external environment factors, it is crucial to analyze your value proposition and the potential of your product to satisfy the market demands.

Select the Specialist Development Team

The team acts as a backbone in the process of turning up your idea into reality. Conduct in-depth market research to find the best UX designers & experienced team of developers who can thoroughly understand your idea and put down the necessary efforts to make it a great success.

Also, don’t forget to create a systematic workflow that can act as an initial roadmap for the team to move ahead. Once you are done with your team selection, consider discussing the feature list you want to include in your app to make it unique from your competitors.

Build an MVP Version of The App

MVP refers to the Minimum Viable Product in which the minimum number of features and functionalities are used to develop a testing app version at a low cost and given timeframe. Creating an MVP version is crucial to understand the performance of the app and getting genuine feedback from the first adopters.

But make sure to offer the value to the prospects with minimum features to open the doors of its success further. With a good MVP, design mockups, and prototype, one can easily attract new prospects and turn them into regular users. Also, it can be a key to raise the required funds for the project MVP development.

Top Features to Include in Clubhouse App Development

Some of the common and not-so-common features included in the Clubhouse app are as follows;

• Profile- The user can create their profile and update details that they like to share or show to fellow app users. User can also link their other social platforms links to reach people through multiple sources.
• Invites- Existing users can invite outsiders to connect through the app by sharing the unique invite reference link.
• Language Filters- The app is all about verbal communication, therefore to facilitate users the company has introduced a filtering function, where users can choose rooms in the language they understand.
• Customizable Notification- Notifications are for increasing user engagement with the app, but sometimes it may turn annoying for the user. Therefore, the user can customize the notification based on their convenience.
• File Sharing- Users can share images and documents of a reasonable size limit with other users with ease.
• Private Rooms- In Clubhouse, the users can even avail of the feature of a private room, where the user can interact with a person after getting the invitation accepted.
• Clips- The live listeners can snip the recent or ongoing rooms’ 30-second audio and share it anywhere with a link to invite people to join the room. However, the host can even turn off this feature for other members.
• Replay- This feature allows the creator to record the audio of the room and save it to their profile and club. They can even download the audio and share it on other platforms, like a podcast. The host can even set the recording permission for other members too.
• End-to-End Encryption- In the Clubhouse, the user is getting end-to-end encryption, where the data and audio communications are highly secure and stored in an encrypted form.
• Audio Quality- Clubhouse is all about voice conversation. Thus, considering the importance of audio, the user can switch the audio quality from High to Standard or vice-versa.
• Search People in a Room- The user can easily search for a specific person in the room when the participant list is long.
• Hiding a Room- The user can hide the rooms if they don’t want to see or visit anymore. Other users who search for it, will get the result of irrelevant room names.
• Hand Raise- To maintain the flow and interaction in the chat room, the organizer can manage the queue by using the hands raised feature by the participants.
• Name Change- Clubhouse allows the flexibility to its user to change or correct their names, in case they created the account with an alias or fake name. But can do so only once in their lifetime with the app.
• Social Media Integration- The user can link their other social media account to the app. It is a great feature for businesses and public figures to connect with people and build their brand on multiple platform channels, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Focus on Working for A Killer Marketing and Sales Strategy

Nobody will know the power of the sword unless it is being displayed on the battlefield and the same theory applies to your product. Thus, to demonstrate the utility of your product, it is essential to plan a robust marketing and sales strategy that explains the value of a product to the target audience. You can play around with these concepts to perform your best performance:

• Concentrate on building your brand identity
• Target to create an efficient online presence
• Set up an effective sales funnel
• Set up suitable sales tools
• Decide the achievable sales goals

Carry Out the Data Analysis

Data collection is an integral part of the performance analysis which is necessary to take further decisions and understand the market demands. Make use of the modern and dynamic data analytics toolkit that can help in making good strides. After that, consider linking your data to a business context in order to take the well-intentioned decisions that lay down the path to achieve the pre-desired business goals.

Technologies Required to Build Clubhouse Like App

The required tech stack is required to bring success to your project:

Languages and Frameworks: Python, Java, HTML5, Kotlin, CSS3, Objective-C, Linux, Kotlin, Django.

Design: Figma, Google fonts

Application Hosting: Nginx, AWS, PubNub

Application Utilities:  Airtable

Analytics: Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Amplitude

Back Office: Lever

Collaboration:  Google Workspace

Data Stores: Redis, PostgreSQL

Marketing and Sales Tools:  Ghost, Google Ads, Salesforce, Zendesk, Facebook Ads.

How does Clubhouse Make Money?

Developing any social media platform is super easy but making money out of it is really a difficult task to perform. There are many processes that can be applied in the apps to make money out of it:

Subscription Method

This is a very popular model which allows developers to create a free download app and the users can buy subscriptions that provide them access to explore more content of their interest. Using this strategy, the app owner can easily create the initial user base and manage to attract more users and turn them into paid ones.

In-App Advertisement

This is another popular method used in the market. The method allows the app owner to provide space for the in-app advertisements and charge a fixed amount from them. Also, the strategy offers better benefits if in case the app is able to deliver useful content to the audience. Nobody likes disturbances in between thus users switch to the ad-free version by paying a fixed amount. Thus, in both cases, there are good chances of generating revenue from the app.

Tipping

The content creators in any app are the soul of that platform and offering a virtual tip for their hard efforts is necessary to maintain their motivation. The app allows the audience to directly support them by purchasing a ticket for the content or paying a certain amount as a tip. Thus, this method helps in creating a huge user base and attracts existing and new content creators to provide innovative content for the success of the app.

Partnerships

This model is usually suitable for the app platform which has a huge market user base in any particular niche/area. The app owner can choose to connect/partner with other well-known brands that can help in generating a good amount of revenue and a strong brand image. Also, a mindful partnership will benefit the user with exposure to the new demographics of the partnered app.

Cost of Developing an App Like Clubhouse

Deciding the cost of developing an app like Clubhouse can vary because it depends on multiple factors included in the app. The factors that accounts for total cost are features, design, product complexity, time frame, and more.

Let’s discuss in detail about how these factors are going to affect the cost estimation of the app development.

Research & Design Phase

The app development begins with the discovery process where the discussion will move around the data collection, understanding of product needs, and deciding features to be included. This may vary as per the individual client requirements and affect the necessity of resources and thus ultimately bring variations in the cost.

Development Phase

After deciding on the basic features and functionalities, it is necessary to decide on the relevant tools and technologies to be included in the app. Apart from this, there are other technical fields that need to be considered like types of databases, APIs, SDKs, and more. Depending on the decided technical factors, the cost of development will vary for each individual. The more complex tools and technologies, the higher will be the cost and vice-versa.

Testing and Launch Phase

Testing is one of the crucial phases before launching the product on the market. The testing duration and tools requirements are depended on the complexity of the app. If the app is complex with diverse features and functionalities then it will take some more time to finish the testing and vice-versa. Once the testing is done, the app is ready for launch. While the version of the app launch will again bring fluctuations in the app development cost.

Technical Documentation Phase

Lastly, the documentation phase is performed to keep the record of important information about the project. The cost will vary according to the length of the documentation and the complexity involved. It is obvious that lengthy documents will require more manpower and resources and it will cost higher and vice-versa.

Moreover, the estimated cost of developing an app like Clubhouse will cost around $30,000-$40,000.

To get detailed information about your custom app development cost, contact our business development managers.

Steps To Choose The Development Team

The development team is decided based on the type of project you are working on. If you are trying to launch a startup project with fewer features and functionalities then it may require a small team to work on. Whereas, a project with dynamic functionalities will require a well-experienced and huge team to make your project a great success.

To decide which team will be suitable for your business, here are three major categories you can choose from:

1. Outsource A Team

Outsourcing a team for the app development means, handing over the task to an outside agency that can understand the project needs and perform really well for the company. This is a contractual agreement where the outside agency builds the effective project as per the expectations of the company.

Here are the few benefits that an outsourcing agency offers:

• Offers access to the large talented individuals
• Provides an opportunity to lower the cost
• One can easily find a technology proficient team as per their convenience and project requirements

2. Build An In-House Team

While building an in-house team you can hire developers from scratch and fulfil your project needs. Remember that you need to go through the whole recruiting process from recruiting, and interviewing to employee onboarding which will be a time-consuming process.

Here is the list of benefits you can enjoy by hiring an in-house team for your project development:

• You can establish a robust team as per your work culture
• You can manage good direct communication with an in-house team
• You will get immediate support in case of any future bug fixing or another emergency

3. Hire Individual Freelancers

Freelance developers are individuals who are not working for a company but individually work for the projects on an hourly basis. They hold a good experience in dynamic industries and thus they can easily fulfil the project needs.

Sharing down the list of benefits earned by hiring Freelance developers:

• You can get access to the developer’s talent globally
• Freelancers offer the flexibility of immediate support in the project development
• You can save a lot of money because you only pay for the hours worked by freelancers

An Ideal Team Size Required to Make an App Like Clubhouse

• 1 Project Manager
• 1 UI/UX Designer
• 1–2 iOS Developers
• 1-2 Android Developers
• 1 Backend Developer
• 1 Quality Assurance Specialist

Summing Up!

Just like other social media apps, the trend of audio-based apps is soaring in the market and the pandemic situation has added much significance to it. Like never before, people are enjoying the audio chats and finding it convenient to use the concept of connecting without even turning on the video.

The app platform is helping to build the confidence to share their emotions with better clarity. But just developing an audio-based app will be no more than other existing apps that are struggling to gain traction in the market.

So, just to build a strong brand image and satisfy emerging market demands, it is crucial to try an innovative approach. Include a list of unique features that can be appealing to the users and can offer customer satisfaction.

Begin the journey to build this trending audio-based app and turn this robust idea into reality. Connect with the expert team of developers at Codiant who have mastered the art of developing feature-rich mobile apps in various domains. Developing the next popular voice-chat app is just a click away. Discuss your project now.