Tade Oyerinde and Teddy Solomon talk about building engaged audiences at TechCrunch Disrupt

Tade Oyerinde and Teddy Solomon know a few things about building communities that last.

Afterall, Oyerinde is the founder and chancellor of the online school Campus, while Solomon is the co-founder behind the college social app Fizz.

The two spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt this year, breaking down the strategies that helped them scale their companies while retaining consumer interest.

Campus: On-demand education and upskilling

Campus offers associate degrees in areas like information technology and business administration. It also offers certificates in specialities like cosmetology and phlebotomy. There are more than 3,000 students enrolled in Campus, and it employs more than 100 professors on at least a part-time basis, Oyerinde says.

Oyerinde said Campus decided to launch à la carte courses since employers, in particular, have been asking for classes that can teach their employees individual skills like vibe coding.

He’s realized that a lot of people are looking to upskill and believes that in the future, everyone will have some sort of membership or subscription service that helps them develop new skills.

“Everyone in this room, not just two-year degree-seeking people, will be able to go to Campus and learn with us,” he told the audience. “Live, online classes, taught by amazing people.”

Oyerinde makes use of the Pell Grant to help keep the school affordable for most people. He also has a team of billionaires on his company’s cap table — like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Discord’s Jason Citroen — meaning he doesn’t feel much pressure to focus on profits above all else, he said.

“They don’t need the money,” he continued. “What they really want is to fundamentally shape the way that education works in this country for the better.”

Fizz: Centered on the user

Fizz, meanwhile, operates on more than 200 college campuses and at one point operated in high schools across the country. It has raised more than $40 million with investors including Owl Ventures and NEA.

Since launching in 2021, Solomon said the company had adopted features like a peer-to-peer marketplace that’s listed more than 100,000 items, and a video element so people can write more than text posts.

Now, the company is looking to build a product called Global Fizz to expand the product beyond the U.S. Solomon spoke more about that on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, where he mapped out the future of the company.

Solomon told the audience that the company is looking at ways to monetize, focusing on ads in particular. “We’ve already worked with companies like Perplexity,” he said.

“There are subscription models that have worked well with apps, but right now we’re focused on our ads business, and we’re focused on building a great product that keeps our users around and makes them happy.”

After all, he said, “The users are everything.”