DOI: 10.7910/dvn/aepu7g
title: Designing An App Like Clubhouse

description: &lt;p&gt;Everyone speaks about Clubhouse nowadays. People are talking about its features and disputing about that app in general. Recently, the service has been classified as a Unicorn startup, just like Uber and Airbnb. Official resources claim that its capital exceeds $1 billion, which is pretty impressive.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Our task today is to figure out what it takes to make a Clubhouse-like platform, so let&rsquo;s distinguish the key points.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Features of a Clubhouse clone&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you take a closer look at Clubhouse, you&rsquo;ll see that it prefers everything minimal and simple, including its functionality. In fact, the functions this resource offers represent the most essential possibilities, so the audience won&rsquo;t be distracted from the key Clubhouse task - communication by voice.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When building a Clubhouse-like solution, it&rsquo;s critical to implement the below features:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Check-in&lt;/strong&gt;. Registration is the first thing people do after having downloaded the app. To get registered on Clubhouse, a person shall have an invitation from one of the current users of that platform. This option isn&rsquo;t mandatory, so you don&rsquo;t have to implement such invitations;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Account customization&lt;/strong&gt;. Personal profiles serve for users to describe their hobbies and interests. As a rule, &lt;a href="https://agilie.com/en/services/messaging-apps"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;apps for communication&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; use the data indicated in the profile to recommend the appropriate content for the users;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Search engine&lt;/strong&gt;. These days search tools are a must, so users won&rsquo;t have any issues finding certain people. You could come up with more filters;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Audio&lt;/strong&gt;. We&rsquo;re talking about the creation of a voice communication service, thus, microphone access is compulsory. We&rsquo;ll devote more attention to the audio component a little bit later;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Communication space&lt;/strong&gt;. A voice chat application requires a feature that would take care of the communication space. Clubhouse calls it &ldquo;rooms&rdquo;. You could think of another cool name for the given feature;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Clubs&lt;/strong&gt;. That&rsquo;s another term from Clubhouse. Users are free to search and wander in those spaces that are divided by the interests of people;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Feed&lt;/strong&gt;. This feature shall include various scheduled dialogues (the rooms we spoke about earlier), topics, and other similar things;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pushes&lt;/strong&gt;. You need such a parameter to be able to communicate with your audience and inform them of something important. Why not remind them of the start of some discussions, or notify them of future events?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Making a Clubhouse-like application&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The development process shall include specific phases to ensure the final digital product will turn out to be effective and popular. Here are the key stages you have to take care of:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#1. Market analysis&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&rsquo;s pretty risky to start the development without having carried out a thorough study of the current situation at the market niche, the needs your potential clients have, and the solutions your future competitors offer. For now, your only rival would be the Clubhouse, so you need to carefully explore it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#2. Action plan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;All the data you manage to collect during the first step has to be presented in the form of a specific strategy to establish. This phase also implies budget calculations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#3. UX/UI&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That would be another crucial point to consider. A voice chat platform has to be up-to-date having an intuitive and user-friendly interface. The navigation shall be clear and simple.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#4. MVP &amp; MLP&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It could be pretty costly to design a fully-featured application like Clubhouse, so building a minimum viable product could be a good option to start with. Your MVP shall include only the most essential functionality which you&rsquo;ll be able to expand gradually. The MLP would be the following stage when you improve your MVP version.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#5. Tests&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Whatever solution you decide to create (a fully-fledged app or an MVP) before you launch the service, it has to be closely tested to make sure the resource operates flawlessly. It&rsquo;s better you find those bugs (if any) and fix them, rather than letting your users deal with certain issues.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#6. Launch&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After all the stages have been successfully completed, your brainchild is ready to see the world and be published in Google Play and/or App Store. By the by, the analysis we spoke about at the very beginning will tell you what platforms (Android or iOS) your potential customers prefer, so you&rsquo;ll know which platform to focus on. However, ideally, you shall build both.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#7. Users&rsquo; reviews&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;What are you supposed to do when your service is up and running? Now the task is to track and analyze users&rsquo; behavior to be able to enhance the platform for it to meet all the expectations users might have.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now we shall discuss a few more details regarding the development of a Clubhouse clone.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Audio component&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Making a voice chat solution doesn&rsquo;t make any sense, unless you manage to ensure high-quality sound parameters. The importance of such a feature is pretty clear when it comes to voice communication services. In general, the audio transition procedure is carried out in the following steps:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;In the process of setting up the communication, a user is to send to the server the relevant request;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The server shall re-direct the stream to people who joined the room to start the communication;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The server isn&rsquo;t programmed to record or store the conversation (that&rsquo;s the case of Clubhouse), so people who miss the discussion can&rsquo;t find out what that conversation was about.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;While making your own Clubhouse, the objective is to find a reliable server that will be able to ensure proper audio streams. And, under the condition the conversations won&rsquo;t get stored, that server isn&rsquo;t supposed to have specialized properties.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Architecture&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The best option to apply for building a voice chat service is a multi-leveled client-server approach, which will allow you to enjoy a wider variety of development instruments. That&rsquo;s the way to make the whole process more convenient.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The mentioned client-server architecture will make it possible to divide your project into 3 parts (server, database, and the client). The method will ensure greater security of users&rsquo; data and better scalability. However, this will demand you to pick a server having pretty high performance.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Speaking of the development approach, the simplest way would be to apply for ready-made solutions. However, it won&rsquo;t help you create a truly unique platform. Of course, building from scratch is a more expensive and complicated technique, but only by doing so, you&rsquo;ll manage to design a service to meet all the requirements you keep in mind.&lt;/p&gt;