Humble beginnings
Global Teacher began in a student house, in Manchester.
On a cold Autumnal evening.
Funnily enough, I wasn’t in the shower but I was running a shower.
Post University
Global Teacher lived on bits of paper, post-it notes and random iPhone notes
And it is cliche, that old ‘back of a fag packet’ notion, but maybe that is where the best ideas are formed.
It is true, as with all ideas, Global Teacher began life as a mere thought.
Lift Off
Fast-forward a couple of years and Global Teacher was birthed, in a more 3D sense.
On Feb 19th 2019, Global Teacher was given a ‘birth’ certificate by the one and only Companies House.
Speaking of Houses
When the decision was made, to go after this mission, a home office was set up in my Dad’s spare room.
It was bare and bold, I suppose and yes I did take an image (below) of the desk, with Jeff Bezos in mind…
From here we went onto Hope Street XChange, where I was looked after, for over a year, by the fantastic team supporting startups straight out of university.
After that, at the BIC (North East Business Innovation Centre), we were gifted a desk in their Innovation Zone and then Open Space.
When we’d pretty much hot-desked the life out of the North-East, we decided that it was time to find our own place.
A Place to Call Home
And that place is…‘Sunniside Up’. The whole story is serendipitous, or maybe it’s just me?
But we landed on this place through introductions, searching and then almost stumbling on the landlord who offered a tour around the shabby 2nd floor of a terraced block on High Street West, Sunderland.
Immediately, we fell in love, the building had a big butterfly mural on which symbolised to me, transformation. The phase I felt we were in, after just raising a significant round of funding. And also, the view of the port from the 3 large original bay windows.
We worked with two of the best handymen around to get this place ship shape.
And we designed/did a lot of it ourselves too. Like fitting carpet at 9:30pm one evening ????
The Evolution of Global Teacher HQ (desk)
Why Sunniside Up?
We are based in Sunniside, Sunderland. And the post code is SR1 1UP. Hence Sunniside Up. But it’s even better because our product runs off the sun, and solar panels pretty much rely on sunny-sides.
This to us was another confirmation that we’re on the right path.
If you made it this far, here’s your treat.
