How to Run a Successful Entrepreneur Club on Clubhouse

How to Run a Successful Entrepreneur Club on Clubhouse

A Wide Variety of Necessary Skills Were Used to Create the Most Successful Entrepreneur Club and Stage on Clubhouse

By Dr. Anthony M. Criniti IV (aka “Dr. Finance®”)

As Principle 5 from The Most Important Lessons in Economics and Finance book states: “An army of many can’t stop an idea whose time has come” (Criniti, 2014, p. 36). That’s exactly what happened on the morning of Friday, April 30th, 2021 when Kate Hancock and Daniel Robbins opened up a room in their entrepreneur club on Clubhouse called “How to Run a Successful Business. Come In and Speak and Listen.” to provide business and other financial education (not advice). This room eventually broke a record on Clubhouse for being the longest running room/stage. At the time of this writing, the room is still running 40 plus days later…twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week by top speakers discussing various business topics. How did this happen? As I will explain, the reason the most successful room on Clubhouse began is connected to the reason for how the most successful entrepreneur club that formed it was created.

The History of The Best Entrepreneur Club on Clubhouse

On December 25th, bored from being locked in from the Coronavirus restrictions, Kate Hancock decided to start a room on Clubhouse. This moment changed her life. Normally she would have been running her many successful businesses that she own…she is the quintessential serial entrepreneur. She calls herself the Pivot Queen for a reason — a big obstacle comes her way and she pivots.

When Kate initially started her new room, it only had her and her husband Dan in it. Then the magic happened. People just started showing up. They say that it was the only entrepreneur room on there at that time, so the room just kept getting bigger and bigger. Then the influencers starting arriving — people like Daymond John from The Shark Tank and the billionaire Grant Cardone. Other members didn’t want the room to end so Kate and Dan enlisted some help. They kept the room going for 20 days straight beating other records that they heard about.

This entrepreneur / business room eventually became a very successful club with currently about 60,000 followers called “What It Takes to Run a 1 Million Dollar Biz.” After the first “marathon room”, someone else beat their record by having a room run consistently for about 23 days. This didn’t faze Kate and Dan. The next several months, they shifted their energy to building the club and testing different aspects of the rooms to see what works. They were not sure where the opportunity was, but they knew something big was going to happen one day soon; they just needed to be prepared for it.

How to Run a Successful Room on Clubhouse

I was invited on Clubhouse by my mentor Sharon Lechter (co-author of Rich Dad Poor Dad) on February 3rd, 2021. During the first month, I stumbled into Kate and Dan’s room by accident. I discovered that their club was one of the few clubs where someone new like me with very little followers on this platform can come on stage and ask a question to other “experts” in their famous unique Q & A sessions.

My first experience on stage in Clubhouse was in their club. Let’s just say it didn’t go too well! However, after a few more attempts at speaking, Kate eventually let me become a moderator, a person who can control certain important aspects of a room (like who can be on stage). After several mildly successful attempts at being the lead moderator (called the MC) of their rooms, I was determined to step up my Clubhouse leadership skills.

On Friday, April 30th, 2021 after lunch, I decided that I wanted to spend a few hours being the MC. When I took over the room, there were only about 12 people still in there from when it opened in the morning. Typically Kate and Dan opened a room twice a day and then closed it after a few hours. Not this day though. I enlisted a solid group of other moderators to help me out as I promised to deliver on growing a large audience. Within a few hours, the room became bigger.

By about 8:00 or 9:00 pm EST, the room passed 100 people. Then came 200 people. Suddenly major influencers like Forbes Riley and Arlene Dickinson (a dragon on Dragon’s Den) showed up. By night’s end, there were almost 500 people in the room and it became a lively and entertaining stage. I didn’t want to let the audience down, so I stayed on my feet running the room for ten hours straight. Finally, I passed the lead microphone to someone else at about 2:30 am EST.

How to Start a Movement on Clubhouse

When I woke up the next day, I was shocked to discover that the same room was going from the day before and still filled with over 300 people in it. Apparently, everyone (including the owners) wanted to break the record again for the longest running room on Clubhouse. Originally it was decided to keep the room going for 24 days straight (which beat the record), but this then turned into 31 days.

The room became the talk of Clubhouse and many influencers stopped by including people like Sharon Lechter, Grant Cardone, John Assaraf, Dave Kerpen (INC magazine columnist and New York Times best-selling author), and Jason Feifer (editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine). I also hosted many big events in this room showcasing influencers like Loral Langemeier (The Millionaire Maker), Kevin Harrington (from Shark Tank), Steve Harrison, and Bob Burg (co-author of The Go-Giver). At the time of this writing, more than 250,000 people have entered this room.

After 31 days, I was again shocked to find the room still going. I think that’s when it hit me and many other senior members of the club…this is no ordinary room. That is, this room is not a “marathon room” anymore…it’s a movement! Nobody initially knew this was going to happen or evolve into its current form. Was this an idea whose time has come? In this case though, the big idea began from a series of many little ideas.

Considering that this room is currently the longest running room / stage on Clubhouse, it is important to step back and analyze the keys to the success of a room built on the time and talent of its founders and volunteer moderators (and not money). If you dissect how this room (and the entrepreneur club that it is a part of) was built, then you will find many commonalities with successful entrepreneurial businesses. It has become a perfect case study for entrepreneurs. If you can build a movement like this without money, imagine what can be done with it. Let’s take a closer look as the foundational aspects of its success.

What Does It Take to Run a Successful Entrepreneur Club on Clubhouse?

My Dr. Finance® Live Podcast interview with Kate and Dan revealed their secrets to running this extremely successful entrepreneur club on Clubhouse. I found out that there were four major ingredients to its success: having a strong purpose, being inclusive, having a great team, and having a great lead moderator. Let’s look at each of these!

First, as Kate puts it: “Make sure your why and your mission is there.” She and her husband Dan have stated their purpose long before the club was even thought of; that is, their dream goal is to impact over 100,000,000 entrepreneurs. As they have had probably over a million people enter since their first room (which later became the current club), it is safe to say that they are about 1/100th of the way to meeting their goal.

Second, Kate also noted that it is important to be inclusive and embracing to other people’s opinions. This is why they have a unique questions and answers session every day where their experts on stage share knowledge to help other entrepreneurs in the audience, regardless if they are just beginners. The topics in the room usually include business, entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, and other related subjects. As Dan states: “It’s giving people an opportunity and not looking at their following count.” The couple has had this abundance mentality since day one and it is a huge reason for their success.

The third key to their successful club has been having such a great team. In the beginning, Kate actually would hire moderators like she would her employees (but without pay as they were volunteers). The moderators went through a rigorous screening process including filling out an actual application. She does not need to do that anymore, probably because she did the hard work of enlisting a core group of people that she can trust to help her find other qualified moderators.

Finally, the last ingredient to their successful club has been finding quality lead moderators. Like every group, the members are only as strong as their leader. As you will see, this is one of the single most important requirements to running a successful room. Kate and Dan admits that they are not the best MCs. However, their strengths are being great executive producers — they lead very well doing all of the necessary things behind the scenes that the audience doesn’t see. Despite their MC limitations, their club members include some of the finest lead moderators on Clubhouse.

What Does It Take to Run a Successful Entrepreneur Room/Stage on Clubhouse?

Many of the same qualities to run a successful club on clubhouse also apply to running the rooms. The following are some additional considerations. First, Kate stresses the importance of a catchy title. As Dan puts it: “People aren’t going to come to your room if it’s not that headline. And I think that we know from most content even on the internet if you’re answering a question, then people want to listen. So that’s why we always do the question as the title.”

Second, in order to run a successful room, Kate stresses that the room has to be reset every 20 minutes so that people know what’s going on. Additionally, you have to set the rules and guidelines on every reset to keep order in the room.

Third, a successful room needs to have a backchannel where all of the lead speakers and MCs can communicate. Kate says: “Make sure you have a backchannel. That’s where the logistics are coming in.” Currently, they have over 150 amazing moderators in the backchannel coming in and out of the room.

Finally, Kate and Dan put special emphasis on the lead moderator of the room — the MC. This person needs a variety of crucial skillsets that can only be described best in one word: a “leader.” Kate added: “…the right voice and the energy and the one who can really focus because we all know moderating a room it requires laser focus to run a successful and engaging a room.”

Dan elaborates more on the required qualities of the leader of the room: “And I think it’s just like a TV show, people are going to stop in there and they are going to decide in 15 to 30 seconds whether they are going to stay. So if the room is not appealing and there is not energy in the room like what Kate said, one MC in that room could basically drop the whole audience off. And you’ll see it because somebody might switch over. Like when Dr. Finance comes on, the rooms really go up. You know if you have a personality and people are really looking for that, you are the host of the show and Kate’s the Executive Producer. So you really have to think of it that way and you have to treat it like it’s an actual TV show.”

Closing

In summary, the room called “How to Run a Successful Business. Come In and Speak and Listen.” has become a Clubhouse phenomenon. There was something spectacular about how on that first day a small group of like-minded people created something much bigger than we ever anticipated. Classes on the science of group behavior were in session every day since. Forty plus days later, this room is still surviving and thriving.

Many of the people in the club have credited me for starting this movement because of my lead moderating skills on the first day of the room. The truth is though that the credit should also be shared equally with the owners Kate Hancock and Daniel Robbins for the creation and preparation of the idea behind it (starting several months before I arrived on Clubhouse) and to the whole team for implementing it. Without them, I would have been a great leader of a group of one. Further, to have a “movement”…that requires cooperation and connectivity of a large-scale population — the kind of activity demonstrated consistently by the members of the largest running room on Clubhouse. Maybe it truly is “an idea whose time has come.”