Tade Oyerinde is the founder and chancellor of Campus, a revolutionary online community college reimagining access to higher education. Starting with viral dorm-room startups, Tade’s journey took him from building UniRoulette and CampusWire to acquiring an accredited college and launching Campus. Today, Campus serves over 2,000 students, employs 240+ staff, and has raised $100M+ in venture capital, all while helping students graduate debt-free.

In this conversation, Tade shares the winding path to building Campus, including:

• Building viral products from a college dorm
• Pivoting away from unsustainable growth and recognizing false signals
• Learning the limitations of synchronous social platforms
• Discovering the adjunct professor pay gap—and turning it into a wedge
• The insight that top professors teach at community colleges too
• Why he acquired a college instead of starting one from scratch
• Building custom education software from the ground up
• Raising capital from Sam Altman, Jason Citron, and General Catalyst
• Why Campus prioritizes human support over AI
• Much more

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Viral ≠ Valuable: Tade learned early that virality alone doesn’t lead to retention or sustainable business models.
• Adjuncts are the secret weapon: Many top professors are adjuncts—underpaid and overlooked—yet open to better platforms.
• Perception ≠ quality: Community colleges often offer courses from the same professors as elite schools, but carry social stigma.
• Build infrastructure, not integrations: Campus runs fully on internally built tools for instruction, administration, and student support.
• Debt-free college is viable: Through Pell Grants and optimized economics, 86% of Campus students pay $0 out-of-pocket.
• Support at scale is human-powered: Every 50 students are supported by a real advisor, counselor, or coach—not AI.
• Raising was milestone-driven: Capital was unlocked at each inflection point—acquisition, accreditation, first students, scaled cohorts.
• Skepticism is a superpower: Having experienced the hype-crash cycle before, Tade built Campus with deliberate, durable conviction.

Brought to you by:

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Where to Find Tade Oyerinde

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadeoyerinde
• Website: https://www.campus.edu

Where to Find David Phillips (Host)

• X: https://x.com/davj
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davjphillips

In This Episode, We Cover

• (00:00) Intro to Tade and the Campus vision
• (01:35) The Tade origin story: homeschool, aerospace, and building UniRoulette
• (03:45) Going viral and raising a seed round in London
• (05:55) The retention issue with synchronous social apps
• (07:15) Pivoting into mobile apps for universities
• (09:35) Building CampusWire and avoiding enterprise sales
• (11:05) Cold emailing 1M professors to grow
• (12:45) How COVID created a head-fake spike
• (14:20) Discovering the adjunct pay gap
• (15:35) The insight that UCLA profs teach at community colleges too
• (16:25) Why community college students weren’t retaining
• (18:10) Walking away from CampusWire to start Campus
• (19:45) Meeting Ralph Wolff, and the plan to buy a college
• (21:10) How Tade raised to acquire an accredited school
• (23:05) The challenge of buying a college as a dropout
• (24:40) Getting the first students and launching Campus
• (26:10) Making college free via Pell Grants
• (27:40) The impact of improving retention on gross margins
• (29:10) Building all the software from scratch
• (30:10) Campus’ live class model and top professors
• (31:05) Hiring a full-time human for every 50 students
• (32:10) Lowering CAC from $15K to sustainable levels
• (33:50) Unlocking funding across inflection points
• (35:10) What’s next for Campus

Referenced
UniRoulette (inspired by ChatRoulette):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatroulette

The Social Network (Film):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/

Clubhouse liquidity challenges:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/style/clubhouse-app-decline.html

Andreessen Horowitz's investment in Clubhouse:
https://a16z.com/2021/01/24/investing-in-clubhouse/

CampusWire (Tade's previous startup):
https://www.campuswire.com/

General Catalyst:
https://www.generalcatalyst.com/

UC San Diego Transfer Admissions:
https://admissions.ucsd.edu/transfer/

FAFSA Application (for Pell Grants):
https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa