Golos was a voice-based social media app launched in response to the global trend of platforms like Clubhouse during the COVID pandemic. Designed for both Russian and global audiences, Golos combined live talk shows, interactive battles, concerts, and pre-recorded shows.
The project faced challenges around user retention, balancing professional and user-generated content, and differentiating its design from Clubhouse. While the project was eventually closed, the lessons learned offered insights into the potential of pivoting toward podcasting.
• Voice-based social media
• Clubhouse alternative
• COVID-era social media trends
• Interactive audio battles
• Multilingual app design
• Live talk shows
• Growth hacking
• Podcast potentia
With Clubhouse booming during the COVID pandemic, we saw an opportunity to create a voice-based social media app tailored for both Russian audiences and global advertisers. Golos aimed to blend the best of Clubhouse’s interactive live content with more curated, professional programming.
The project launched with features like live talk shows, audio battles, and unplugged concerts, all supported by a regional production center to ensure quality content. The design challenge was to create something familiar yet fresh—an interface that kept the accessible vibes of Clubhouse but pushed the experience forward with more advanced features.
As the app gained traction, Golos reached thousands of listeners during its peak, with shows and battles keeping users engaged. One of our most popular features was the battle format—debates inspired by hip-hop battle culture, where listeners could vote live. We also experimented with growth hacking tactics, blending live and pre-recorded shows to drive engagement.
However, as the hype around Clubhouse died down, we saw a decline in users. The main challenge became keeping users engaged without a steady influx of new professional content. Meanwhile, we successfully rolled out a multilingual version of the app, tackling the complexity of hieroglyphic and RTL languages.
Looking back, we might have pivoted Golos to focus on podcasts once Clubhouse’s hype began to fade. The platform was in a great position to move toward long-form audio content, and with a better workflow and faster iteration, we could have made that shift.
While Golos closed, the lessons we learned from this project remain valuable. Revisiting it as a podcast app could still offer new opportunities in the voice-based media space.
