Community-First Design Lessons from Discord and Campus

When you design for people instead of institutions, you don’t just build a product — you spark a movement. That idea is at the heart of a live Builders Stage session titled "Creating Communities and Companies That Last," happening at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West.

Why community-first design matters

In an oversaturated market, products that center real human connection win lasting loyalty. Community-first platforms turn users into contributors, advocates, and product co-creators — creating durable network effects that advertising or feature cycles alone cannot buy.

• Stronger retention: engaged communities reduce churn and lift LTV.
• Authentic growth: referrals and word-of-mouth scale more sustainably than paid acquisition.
• Product resilience: community feedback surfaces real needs and guides roadmaps.

Speakers and provenance

Jason Citron returns to Disrupt — the same stage where Discord broke out in the Startup Battlefield 2013 program. Since then Discord has grown into a global social platform with hundreds of millions of users, proving how connection-led design scales. Tade Oyerinde, founder of Campus and Campuswire, brings a decade of edtech experience and a human-centered approach to rethinking higher education.

What founders and product teams will take away

• How to design features that reward participation and turn users into stewards.
• Strategies for scaling governance and moderation without killing spontaneity.
• Measuring community health: which KPIs matter and which are vanity.
• Tactics for turning classroom, hobby, or niche groups into reliable growth engines.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 also gathers heavy hitters—Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital and others—making it a can’t-miss chance to combine strategic product thinking with investor and operator perspectives. Early registration saves up to $668 on passes.

How organizations can act on community-first lessons

Moving from theory to practice means instrumenting the right signals and running fast, small experiments. Startups should prioritize a handful of community KPIs, test retention nudges, and design feedback loops that feed product decisions. Edtech and higher-education initiatives should pilot cohorts that combine tech with human mentorship to validate learning outcomes.

At a time when product-led growth is table stakes, community-first design is the differentiator that creates real staying power. If you’re heading to Disrupt, the Builders Stage session with Citron and Oyerinde is a focused primer on scaling smarter, not just faster.