Why Augment Business School chose Circle to deliver a premium, unified experience at scale
Ariel Renous & Roy Wellner
Co-Founders of Augment
70x
revenue growth in first 3 years
61%
monthly active user rate
6,000+
students across 94 countries
10
person team managing at scale
Overview
Ariel Renous and Roy Wellner built Augment, "The MBA for Entrepreneurs" — taught by founders from YouTube, Wikipedia, Shazam, and Waze. After consolidating from disjointed platforms onto Circle, they transformed Augment into a globally recognized business school with a branded app, engaged community, and explosive revenue growth.
"Over the past three weeks, we've done more revenue than in all of 2024. This third year is when the machine really took off."
BEFORE:
Building a world-class MBA with celebrity instructors
Ariel Renous is the co-founder and CEO of Augment Business School, "The MBA for Entrepreneurs." The Augment MBA program lets students learn business fundamentals from the founders who built the companies, not academics who studied them.
When Ariel and his co-founder, Roy, attended business school in Paris, they were disappointed. "How can we rethink and rebuild business education from the ground up?" Ariel recalls asking. "We wanted something super practical, super flexible, online, and centered around the experience of those who have actually done it."
They raised $2 million on a PowerPoint to make it happen. "That gave us the ability to film super high-quality courses and attract top celebrity speakers," Ariel explains. "We could fly them to Paris and do full production sessions here in France." They landed founders of YouTube, Shazam, Wikipedia, and Waze, plus executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon.
"We invest millions in production and content costs. It's very important for us that the content is just the best it can be."
For two years, Augment hosted courses on Thinkific with their community on Circle. The flexible, self-paced model let students learn anywhere, anytime, on any device — but the split platform setup was far from seamless. Ariel knew they needed everything under one roof.
A disconnected experience undermining a premium brand
As Augment scaled, the split between Thinkific and Circle created friction. Students toggled between platforms — one for courses, another for community. "We wanted to have the courses and community all in one place," Ariel says.
"We were scaling faster than our previous platform. Our content was world-class, but the experience wasn't."
For experienced entrepreneurs and professionals with high expectations, every detail mattered. Augment was positioning itself as the alternative to traditional MBA programs, but a fragmented tech stack undermined that promise. The mobile experience was equally problematic — the Thinkific app "was just not working well," making it difficult for busy professionals to learn on the go.
They couldn't deliver the cohesive experience their students demanded.
SOLUTION:
Bringing courses, community, and mobile together on Circle
In early 2025, Ariel consolidated everything onto Circle. He'd been watching the product roadmap closely. "I was waiting for the LMS functionalities to reach the level of quality they're at today," he says. When Circle could deliver robustcourse hosting, community features, and a high-qualitybranded mobile app, he knew it was time.
"We care a lot about the details. That's why we chose Circle — the look and feel is elevated and matches the quality and premiumness we want for the Augment brand."
Using Circle'scustomization capabilities, they made their community look exactly like their brand. They launched a fully branded iOS and Android app, set upspaces for study groups and co-founder matching, and leaned heavily onworkflows to automate the student experience — from onboarding and segmentation to engagement at scale. For example, automated DMs welcome new students and direct them to WhatsApp groups by geography. "Doing that manually at this scale would be virtually impossible," Ariel explains.
TRANSFORMATION:
A learning experience that feels like a real institution
The results were immediate. Four months after migrating, Augment doubled its student base from 3,000 to 6,000 students. The revenue growth is even more striking.
"Over the past three weeks, we've done more revenue than in all of 2024."
Ariel attributes the acceleration to marketing execution, but unifying everything on Circle removed friction across the student journey. Students now watch courses during their commute, jump into discussions, and manage everything from an integrated ecosystem.
"Circle gave us the platform, and the app created the habit loop. Students dip in, ask questions, watch videos, and come back—it's really the app that made the difference."
The community has reached critical mass with a 61% monthly active user rate. Today, 27% of Augment's active members use the branded app — strong signals that students want education in their pocket.
"Hosting our courses on Circle makes it feel like a real institution," Ariel says — crucial when Augment Business School is compared to traditional MBA programs.
"It took us about two years to reach the level where students were getting extremely high value from the community," Ariel reflects. Students are meeting in person — with spaces like "Find Students Near You" and "Find a Co-Founder" helping to facilitate connections. "When you see people meeting in person in the real world, that's when you realize how powerful this is," Ariel says.
Augment plans to keep producing one course per month, building the world's largest collection of business education from real founders.
