Cluster is a great app

There is no shortage of commentary out there on mobile/internet startups, both from a business and product perspective. Its hard to take a step back from all of that sometimes, since some of this is a self-reinforcing echo chamber; sometimes we begin to think that unless an app becomes a topic of conversation, its not worth using. The flipside- an app gaining wide recognition while under-delivering on value- sometimes happens as well. Some thoughtful discussion here.

One app that has not received the attention it should- and that others might be missing out on- is Cluster. There have only been two articles on TechCrunch, both over two years ago just after the initial launch, and the company seems to be running very lean, having raised only a $1.6MM seed round. Despite this, the app is on my homescreen, and it is the most useful photo app I’ve downloaded.

What makes this product- and other “under the radar” apps like it- so great? It solves a real pain point, it has a simple user experience, and I know that if push came to shove, I’d be willing to pay to use it.

So what does cluster do? Its a mobile app that allows you to create a closed group and share photos and videos…And that’s it. It sounds deadly simple, but no other company has done it better and completely alleviated my pain point.

My daughter was born in January, and as anyone who has had a kid in the last five years knows, you take lots of photos on your phone. You want to share them with people close to you that want to seem them, but you don’t want to share them with everyone you know. Also, not everyone you share with wants to see your photos all the time.

So, how would I have done this previously? Well, there’s Facebook. And yes, I didn’t want to be “one of those people” who not only overshares on Facebook, but overshares photos of their kids doing mundane things that are amazing to you, but not of interest to friends from high school you haven’t seen in ten years. And yes, I know that I could have created a group or played with the privacy settings or something, but honestly who actually does that? And there is so.much.stuff. on Facebook whenever you log in; I know my photos would just be lost inside someone’s notification icon.

Then there is email. I could have blasted out messaged to a group email with photos attached, but the overhead of doing this is just too much: this includes not only creating an email draft and attaching photos, but also writing email content and choosing what photos to send in the first place since attachment file sizes and numbers are limited. And this is only on the sending side: the recipients end up with a clogged inbox, especially since with email, many feel the need for one line reply-alls. With Cluster, this is all solved through photo likes & comments and the only intrusion is an app notification icon. Inbox, cleared.

And, I guess I used to use Path, which I was told was for things like this. Path looked nice, but I never knew what to use it for and all the features just got in the way. I could never imagine using it like I use Cluster.

So, what is the future for companies like this who are building great things, but probably take more time to grow? Evernote may be a good benchmark of slower growth focused on delivering user value. Its hard to think of a photo sharing app in the same way, but I think there is a big business to be had. I just hope the founders can keep their heads down long enough for this to be realized….and PS- I hope it stays free, but like Evernote, if I had to, I’d pay to use this product.