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

Tade Oyirinde and Teddy Solomon know a thing or two about building communities that last.

After all, Oyerinde is the founder and advisor 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, where they explained the strategies that helped them scale their companies while maintaining consumer interest.

The campus offers undergraduate degrees in fields such as information technology and business administration. It also offers certificates in specialties such as cosmetology and phlebotomy. Oyirinde says there are more than 3,000 students enrolled on the campus, and more than 100 professors work at least on a part-time basis.

Oyerinde said Campus decided to launch it Upon request Training Courses Employers, in particular, have been requesting classes that can teach their employees individual skills such as biometric programming.

He realizes that many people are looking to improve their skills 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 people looking for a two-year degree, will be able to come to campus and learn with us,” he told the audience. “Live online classes, taught by amazing people.”

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

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

Meanwhile, Fizz is working on more More than 200 campuses At one point I worked in high schools all over the country. He – she It sparked more More than $40 million with investors including Owl Ventures and NEA.

Since launching in 2021, Solomon said the company has adopted features like a peer-to-peer marketplace that has listed more than 100,000 items, and a video component 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 United States. Solomon talked more about this on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, where he charted the company’s future.

Solomon told the audience that the company is looking for ways to monetize, with a particular focus on advertising. “We’ve already worked with companies like Perplexity,” he said.

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

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