Paul Davison is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Clubhouse, the startup that believes people are at the centre of every moment, providing a platform to talk with friends and meet new friends. To date, Paul has raised over $310M with Clubhouse from a16z, DST, Elad Gil, Naval Ravikant, and many more. Prior to co-founding Clubhouse, Paul was the Founder of Highlight, a location-based consumer social service backed by Benchmark. Before Highlight, Paul actually spent time at Benchmark as an EiR.
In Today's Episode with Paul Davison We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Startups:
- How Paul came to found Highlight in the early days of consumer social?
- What elements worked with Highlight that he took with him to Clubhouse? Which elements did not work that he learned from?
2.) Clubhouse: What Worked:
- What does Paul believe are the primary reasons that Clubhouse grew so fast?
- What metrics does Paul use to determine true product-market-fit and stickiness?
- What is good retention on Day 1, Day 7 and Day 30? How important is 12-month retention?
3.) Clubhouse: What Did Not Work:
- COVID: Does Paul believe that Clubhouse was the COVID antidote we all needed? How sustainable is that if so? What trends make it more sustainable?
- Live Does Not Work: How does Paul respond to Mike Mignano's comments that "live does not work"? Why does Paul believe that Clubhouse is not a content platform?
- Quality: Does Paul agree that the quality of live is not as good as the quality of produced content? Is that a problem? If the quality is worse, what is significantly better about live?
4.) The Future of Social:
- Does Paul agree that we are seeing the disregard of the once hailed social graph in favour of a new era of recommendation media? What does this mean for Clubhouse?
- With the rise of the likes of BeReal, how does Paul think about the importance of authenticity in the next wave of consumer social?
- How does Paul forsee Web3 and the next generation of consumer social being interlinked? What will it take for Web3 to break through? What are the core barriers today?
- Does Paul agree that the best consumer social tools empower creators with Superhuman powers?
5.) Lessons on CEOship:
- What are Paul's biggest lessons on successful company building?
- How does Paul manage the criticism and negativity of the press personally?
- How does Paul maintain the morale internally when the press cycle is so negative?
- How has Paul adapted himself to gain a thicker skin and not pay as much attention?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode:
Paul's Favourite Book: Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood