It used to be that the best place to meet and hear from investors and successful founders were exclusive events and places like the TED Conference, Davos, Summit Series, certain camps at Burning Man, and member-only venues like Soho House and The Battery in San Francisco.

Right now, thanks to COVID, the best (virtual) venue to meet investors and successful founders and learn about start-ups is Clubhouse, the audio-only social media app. Since its inception in April 2020, the app has become popular among investors and founders. Many investors and founders hold regular “rooms” for discussions. Often these “rooms” happen within large “clubs,” which have thousands of members who are interested in topics covered by a respective club. Users can discover relevant rooms by searching upcoming events, finding people whom they follow in rooms, or searching by clubs.

What’s interesting about clubhouse is that, unlike Instagram and Twitter, you cannot buy followers. People must grow their following organically, which is refreshing. Typically, a person’s following is directly proportional to the value and insight they offer when speaking in rooms. Another way to gain a lot of followers is to create clubs and rooms that are popular, and to be a good moderator (host). You are judged by what you say more than how you look and how cool your pictures are. There are no annoying ads or sponsored posts right now, which is great.

The greatest value of Clubhouse is the educational content available. While some rooms don’t offer much value and have moderators who don’t truly understand the topics, great rooms have moderators who will stick to the topics and dive deep with experts on the subject matter. For founders and aspiring founders, you can learn a lot and network in Clubhouse if you are in the right rooms.

The access to famous investors and entrepreneurs is impressive. You can hear from investors directly about what they look for in start-ups, and you can hear from successful founders such as Jamie Kern Lima, who sold her company IT Cosmetics to L’Oréal for $1.2B, and Jaime Schmidt and Chris Cantino, who sold their company Schmidt Naturals to Unilever and have since launched their own venture fund Color Capital.

There are lots of virtual educational events, covering everything from how to assess whether an accelerator is right for your start-up to how to navigate the fundraising journey. There are lots of rooms for founders to hone their pitch skills, network with investors, and commiserate on the hurdles and loneliness of founder life. There are also lots of cool events, such as the virtual book launch party for Jamie Kern Lima’s book Believe IT, as well as interviews with famous entrepreneur-investors such as Elon Musk and Naval Ravikant.

For beauty founders, there are three varieties of Clubhouse clubs that are helpful: I.) Startup Pitch Rooms & Get Unstuck Rooms, II.) Discussion Clubs, and III.) Networking Clubs. Here are some of the best ones:

I. Startup Pitch Rooms & Get Unstuck Rooms

Startup Club—run by Ed Nusbaum, a start-up mentor and co-founder of Agora, which helps companies with tasks like conversion and monetization—is one of the largest and best clubs for founders to learn and practice their pitches. Active members include angel investor Jason Calacanis, Product Hunt Founder Josh Buckley, and Francine Hardaway, Managing Director of Golden Seeds. Within this club, there are regular rooms:

• Saba Karim, the Global Startup Pipeline Manager of TechStars (a leading global start-up accelerator), hosts regular rooms for pitch practice and founder office hours daily in the mornings and evening.
• Soumeya Benghanem, product management lead at VMware and an entrepreneur, hosts regular Founder Office Hours: Where Are You Stuck? with successful entrepreneurs and investors.
• Shondra Washington, co-founder at TBC-Capital, hosts a room within the club Pitch Practice every Tuesday.
• Founderstreams – Run by Jonathan G. Blanco, founder of start-up studio & digital agency TF Labs.io.
• Brian Bagdasarian, founder of Simply and investor, and John Park, HBS Alumni Angels, often help founders with their pitches and give very helpful strategy advice.
• VC and entrepreneur Amado Guloy hosts regular rooms to help underrepresented founders get unstuck.
• Deal or Bust: Founders Shoot Their Shot,​ hosted by Nathan Latka, CEO of Founderpath.com and a business podcaster. In this room, investors wire money on the spot to promising start-ups.

VC & Angel Investors Club

• Startup Hotline: What Investors Really Think of Your Idea room hosted on Wednesdays by Hustle Fund General Partner & co-founder Elizabeth Yin.

Invest Club

• The Sixty Second Pitch Room, a platform for Underrepresented Founders to pitch their ideas and products and receive real-time feedback from investors. This room takes place every Monday at 8 pm ET.
• OzoneX Office Hours – Partners from VC firm Ozone X host regular office hours to help founders and give feedback. This room takes place every Friday at 12:15 pm ET.

Future of Work – This club delves into topics from entrepreneurship to raising capital.

Startup Fundraising Room – This is a club for start-up founders and investors to share insights and advice on start-up fundraising.

Women Founders Unite – This club hosts great chats relevant to female founders.

Female Funders & Founders – This club brings together female founders and investors.

BLK Founders Club – This club, founded by entrepreneur and angel investor Harold Hughes, is designed to follow, support, and amplify Black founders. They host a Help Fest on Fridays at 11 am ET.

II. Discussion Clubs – Hear fireside chats, learn or share knowledge

The Beauty Room – This is the largest beauty room on Clubhouse, founded by Jaleesa Jaikaran, international celebrity makeup artist.

• Look out for Founder Fireside Chat, Equality Beauty and Beauty Discoveries rooms hosted by beauty industry veteran Roseann Fernandez, who is now founder of Passion for Beauty Agency, a boutique branding and product development firm. Last week, she hosted a fireside chat with Indie Lee, founder of her eponymous luxury, clean skincare brand. This week’s fireside chat will be with Christina Zilber, founder Jouer Cosmetics, on Saturday, March 13, at 10 am ET. Equality Beauty rooms happen every Thursday at 5 pm ET.

The Beauty Club – This club was created by Michela Wariebi, a makeup artist and beauty content creator. It hosts weekly rooms Beauty Townhalls, Morning Beauty Chats.

• Beauty PR veteran and founder of MB Social Mimi Banks hosts regular rooms including rooms focused on PR and beauty content.

The Skin Enthusiast – This club founded by Sophia Hong, founder of Mask Moments, is for skincare lovers, founders, leading dermatologists, plastic surgeons, beauty editors, aestheticians, and popular TikTok creators and Instagram influencers. Notable members include reality star Paris Hilton and B. Simone, comedian & founder of her eponymous beauty brand.

Club CPG – This club is focused on consumer products, retail, DTC, and e-commerce. It was founded by Chris Cantino and Jaime Schmidt of Color Capital. Some active members of this club are Beautycon co-founder Moj Mahdara and BeautyStat Founder Ron Robinson.

Black Beauty Club – This club offers insightful thought leadership and cultural conversations around the Black Beauty space including conversations about beauty rituals from the diaspora, cultural appropriation, and inclusion in the beauty industry.

K-Beauty Club – This club offers discussion on everything related to K-beauty: skincare routines, reviews, tips, hottest ingredients, new innovations, and new brands. Share and ask for tips about formulation, manufacturing, wholesale and retail distribution.

Clean Beauty Club – This club is a space for people to talk about clean beauty, innovation trends, as well as the brands and products they love. It aims to be educational about what clean beauty is and why it’s important.

III. Networking Clubs

Women Founders Club – Founded by Katherine Lynn, founder and CEO of job application platform NextSteps, and Liana Fricker, founder of Inspiration Space, a virtual community for entrepreneurs to network.

Founders Helping Founders – Tech investor and founder James Boskovic founded this room to be a safe place for founders to come help or receive help.