folder Filed in Rebrands
Clubhouse.io rebrands to Shortcut.com
By SmartBranding Team access_time 2 min read

Clubhouse was founded in 2014 by Kurt Schrader and Andrew Childs. Before the world went crazy about the social app with the same name, Clubhouse secured the domain name Clubhouse.io and went on a mission to challenge global software giants like Atlassian and the likes. In January 2020 the startup raised US$ 25 million.


We want to go long on this and build a really big company, to carve up this market and get our big piece of it.

Kurt Schrader, Clubhouse’s Co-founder and CEO

Another company had similar plans around the same time – the social app Clubhouse, launched in 2020 on JoinClubhouse.com. Its popularity exploded over the pandemic and it quickly became clear to the founders of Clubhouse.io that they need to do something. There can only be one Clubhouse and any other brands using the same name would live in its shadow. 

We don’t know the details but in April 2021 Clubhouse upgraded its domain name to Clubhouse.com.


Clubhouse is a good name. Well, it was a good name, because it’s not going to be our name anymore. For many of you, the reason for this is probably pretty obvious. The Clubhouse Audio App became so big so fast that we couldn’t possibly hope to forever maintain our own brand standing in the face of their popularity.

Kurt Schrader, CEO and Co-founder of Shortcut

In September Clubhouse.io rebranded to Shortcut.com. Domain name upgrade or complete rebrand is a choice founders often face when launching a business on a compromise domain name. We can only wonder about the complete cost of this particular rebrand but luckily it seems like it has turned out well for Shortcut.

branding clubhouse rebrand startups