Episode 009 with Katie Hasselstrøm, Teacher turned Tech Founder!

Speaker A: Foreign. Hello, and welcome back to the Broadtech Podcast. My name is Amy Kelly and today I am joined by Katie Hasselstrom. Before we jump into this episode, we have a few words from today's sponsor, our friends at, uh, User Testing.

Speaker B: Hi, I'm Jamie Anderson and I'm the president of User Testing. If you don't know who we are, we are the company that helps major brands across the world craft amazing customer experiences by understanding how their customers truly feel about their products, services and digital experiences. Go and check us out, uh, @usertesting.com.

Speaker A: hello, Kacey, how are you?

Speaker C: I'm good, thanks, Amy. Thank you so much for having me today.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us. Really appreciate you taking the time. So you are the founder of Teacher Bot, so we'd first of all just love to learn a little bit more about you and your backstory for our audience today.

Speaker C: Sure, yeah, of course. So, um, I'm a teacher. I've been a teacher for 12 years, um, across the UK, Denmark and South Africa, and more recently, yeah, the founder of teacher bot. So TeacherBot was founded two years ago, so I felt like I was well positioned, um, to start an edtech company. And, yeah, that's where we are today.

Speaker A: Well, I would love to find out more about TeacherBot, and it would be great to just understand a little bit. You know, if you're, as a teacher, you've obviously seen a need for something and you've went and created Teacher Bot. So what was that problem that you just saw and you thought, we need to solve this and tell us a little bit more about Teacher Bot.

Speaker C: Yeah, basically I wanted to help teachers make it home in time for tea with their families. I know over the years I would come home, my tea was in the oven, uh, waiting for me when I came home. And I thought, there must be another way, there must be another way to reduce workload, um, to streamline planning and to slice their ability to create resources. And. Yeah. So kind of rewind back to two years ago, we had the introduction of ChatGPT, and I played around with that and I thought, golly gosh, um, this is going to be insane for teachers. So from there, yeah, I played around with it, got some of my close friends together who were teachers, some of my uni friends, and thought, how can we integrate this into something that's really super easy for teachers to use? And we came up with TeacherBot.

Speaker A: That's amazing. I think with obviously the huge blast of AI and obviously, I think machine learning, experimenting for a long time. But when we looked at ChatGPT coming to market and people trying to understand how to leverage AI. And then you saw that exactly how that could fit into what your life was like at this time. So what stage is Teacher Bot, uh, at now? Do you have customers in different parts of the world that tells a little bit more about the business?

Speaker C: Yeah. So when we launched back December 22, um, we launched Teacher Bot with just three, um, tools for teachers. And we launched it within a week, put it out there because I thought there was no point in continuing with anything that people don't want to buy. So, um, within the week we had like a stream of users come on board and my husband, who's built some businesses in the past, was like, this isn't normal for this to happen, to get so many users. Um, and, and yeah, within the first week we had our first customer and I was like, oh my gosh, like somebody wants to pay for what I've built. Like, this is insane.

Speaker A: That's amazing. And it just shows that the pain was great enough that you were solving that and you were able to use technology to make these teachers lives easier. So that was the beginning. And then what about now?

Speaker C: Yeah, so that was the beginning. Um, fast forward to now. We've kind of, we've got 25,000 users across 180 countries.

Speaker A: That's amazing.

Speaker C: And yeah, so it's super exciting time.

Speaker A: So what about, um, the experience as a founder? So if you're coming from a teacher profession and then coming in as starting a company, especially a tech startup, that's a whole different experience. So can you just share a little bit about what that experience has been like for you?

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker A: Um, all the highs and lows, don't worry, they can tell us exactly how hard it really is. Yeah.

Speaker C: So going from the classroom to, yeah, coming in, sitting behind your computer and starting a business is completely wild because it's very unfamiliar. Um, yeah, it's slightly uncomfortable because it's not what you've done in the past. It's out of your routine. So you have to kind of start new routines and you have to build your knowledge up in a variety of different areas. Um, but I guess being a teacher, you have to be an expert in a lot of different areas. So there's a lot of transferable skills you can use, um, from your profession to bring it in to building a

Speaker A: business that's so great. And I think that, um, as you said that first sitting down and thinking, okay, now I'm going to actually make this something so it's moving it from idea to reality. But, um, you're saying, obviously there's challenges that come with that. Uh, and what have some of the biggest challenges that you've faced so far since you started TeacherBot?

Speaker C: I guess from that first kind of getting your notebook out and drawing what you think that your product's going to look like on screen, um, and then getting that into a product, pretty tricky, like communicating your thoughts to someone else to put that into, uh, a product. Um, that's been pretty tricky. Um, but I guess over the time you learn, don't you? And, um, develop finance. How do you, how do you finance a business? Like, how do you pay yourself wages? Do you pay yourself wages? And I, back in the beginning when I went to like some like founder meetups, I was really embarrassed to ask, like, do you pay yourself? And like, just like, how does it all work together? Because you've never started a business before. So I think what was then important was to gather mentors and people who've done it before, um, to help you structure it and to help you move forward with it.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's this, this whole other learning and especially. How long were you a teacher?

Speaker C: Ah, like 12 years.

Speaker A: 12 years, okay, so that's, yeah, a long time to then go into being a startup tech founder. Pretty different. Um, but can you just explicitly tell us, what does Teacher bot do?

Speaker C: So TeacherBot is a suite of AI tools for educators. It helps them to slice their workload by improving their lesson, planning, forward planning and helping them to create resources whilst also inspiring learning within the classroom.

Speaker A: That's amazing. I've got loads of teacher friends, so they will 100% absolutely love this.

Speaker C: I'd love their feedback.

Speaker A: Uh, definitely. So when we're talking about Starting and building TeacherBot, I think that there's all these learnings at the very beginning, which is, as you said, do you pay yourself? What's the finances, how do you set this up, the tech side, the marketing, all this kind of stuff. But then we look at now, what are you finding is the key challenges for you right now as you're scaling?

Speaker C: Yeah, good question. Um, I guess there's like little pockets of challenges across a variety of areas. Um, yeah, how, how to effectively market your product, m. How to have the right mentors to support you and um, the right people to kind of bring you to that next level, I think is tricky as well. Um, just navigating through the growth, I guess. And as you grow, new challenges arise and you sometimes have to speak to different people to Help you to up level the business to the next level

Speaker A: and almost getting the problems that create more opportunities so that, you know, more customers, more problems, but more opportunities perhaps. And uh, you know, especially since you, you're in so many countries, I imagine like the localization must be a thing as well or.

Speaker C: For sure, yeah. Particular countries you're working with have got different curriculums so you have to access educators within those to make sure that um, even like the wording or the language is appropriate for their part of the world.

Speaker A: And what about um, when we talk about the best part of the experience? Because I think that the exciting part of running your own business is that you are building something. You know, you're actually creating something that customers can use. And as much as it's scary, uh, very difficult, it's also really exciting times. So what's been the best part of this experience for you?

Speaker C: I think developing as a leader has been really exciting for me. Um, coming from the classroom and having leadership opportunities in the classroom, it's just completely different in business. Um, I think just seeing your ideas come to life is absolutely insane. Um, to know that you're benefiting so many educators and ultimately children is just amazing. So as a teacher you have an impact, kind of a small scale with your class of 28 or 30. Um, but with Teacher Bot, I've been able to multiply that effect, which has been, yeah, really lovely.

Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing, Casey. And it would be great to also just talk about the support you've had. You know, we're always trying to promote Scotland as this amazing place. There's so many great things happening here which a lot of people don't know about and there's a lot of support as well. So there's loads of different organizations that can help early stage founders. So has there been anywhere that you've went to for help or anywhere you'd recommend to fellow startup founders that might be super early on looking for just where to go?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's an interesting question actually, because when I first started the business, I didn't really know that there was any support out there. Um, because you don't, you're not as a teacher, you're not on LinkedIn or you're not engaged with anybody kind of in the business sphere here in Scotland or um, internationally. So I did, I joined LinkedIn, get on there and I, yeah, I had a little browse about and there was some like big voices kind of in the, in the, sorry, business kind of ecosystem here in Scotland. And so I just Connected with a few people. Um, and what I found really inspiring was the people who were like, yeah, I'll jump on a call with you like 30 minutes M and you can pick my brain, see where I've been before. Um, and I kind of built up that way by just every day having like a little 30 minute conversation with different people to understand what they used. Um, I then came across Techscaler, which was amazing and I got a really amazing mentor. Um, and I've had two really great mentors that have helped me really regularly, um, across the last couple of years. So thank you so much to them.

Speaker A: Feel free to shout them out if you want to.

Speaker C: So it was Ben Keiller and Marcus Fields. They were super, super amazing. Um, and on top of them I would just message Techscaler and say, I need a little bit of support here. Um, and then I could speak to a marketing expert or, um, a conversion expert. And the quality of the mentors there was really, really amazing.

Speaker A: Um, I am also a mentor.

Speaker C: Amazing.

Speaker A: Are you with Techscaler? Yes.

Speaker C: Oh, that's so good.

Speaker A: That's. There's a really great diverse group of people here in Scotland that are, you know, definitely part of that grip, you know, from sales, marketing, tech, product. You know, it definitely is something that Techscaler have done really well, providing that support directly. And you've been able to get that from people that can advise you really well and help you along that journey.

Speaker C: Yeah, because you need mentors. Like as a teacher, I didn't know how to be a teacher in the beginning, so I needed a mentor to help me. Um, and it goes for the same with business. Like, uh, you have to start somewhere and it's great if there's somebody who's been there and tried it before.

Speaker A: And it's also having the confidence, I think, to ask for help. You know, sometimes I think the founder journey can be a bit lonely and people might just think, oh God, I'm suffering, I'm on my own, I'm trying to build this thing. When in reality you could just reach out to people. And because what you said, Casey, I think is so great about Scotland is that people are so willing to get on a call, they're so willing to spend a bit of time with you. Um, if you ask for help, there is people out there that really will get involved and help you. And I think that's a beautiful part of the ecosystem.

Speaker C: I think we're really lucky here in Scotland with that as well. And the other one was Scottish Enterprise was great. Um, I Got some funding from them and it really gave me the accelerator that I needed, um, to kind of launch it out there.

Speaker A: Amazing. So let's talk about a little bit of the self training aspect. So there's loads of different parts, as we said earlier. Is there anything that you feel that you've had to go and just train from scratch? Actually said that the transferable skills is great from being a teacher, but is there anything from your side that you're like, okay, I've completely had to teach myself this from, from the ground up?

Speaker C: Yeah, good question. Um, there's a couple of areas. I feel like when I was building the product, I was also doing a degree in accountancy and finance because I just had to like, it's so important in running a business to make sure that people get paid on time. Um, yeah, just making projections and everything else that goes with having a business. Um, so yeah, I kind of built that up from scratch until now with the help of mentors and accountant. Um, product development. Um, I guess I'd never tried to develop a product before. Um, so yeah, I've just learned that I guess naturally from building the product, speaking to the users, reiterating, taking things away, enhancing features or really switching it, uh, up based upon the feedback, which I found is really, really important. Um, so I guess that came as quite a natural one. Just, um, kind of learn by doing.

Speaker A: Your product is never finished. It's just always evolving based on the feedback and seeing how you constantly develop and react to the market. So it's like a brand new thing to think about, isn't it? Compared to quite a lot of other roles when you just think you've created something but there's just still so much to be done on it. So I think that's, that's, it's great to hear that because I think it's something that early stage vendors as well just get that reassurance that they know, okay, this is not the finished product. There's always work to be done. There's always things to be done. And what about exciting things that are coming up for TeacherBot? What are you excited about right now?

Speaker C: I'm excited about TeacherBot's growth. Um, the partners we're bringing on board, the onboarding process is improving and we're working with a lot more partners. So I think over the next year I'm super excited about that.

Speaker A: Amazing. And is there other markets that you're going into or is there anything that you can share with us about the growth?

Speaker C: Yeah. So, um, we've got A big market in the US right now, um, in the UK and India. Um, so, yeah, I think just ensuring that it's really specific to their curriculums and ensuring that, yeah, the users are happy and the customers are happy.

Speaker A: That is brilliant. And I think that's the exciting part of the tech side. You know, creating a software product is it is scalable. We had Ewan on, um, I think it was episode five and he was sharing a lot about that in the sense of creating that tech product is so exciting because then it can be used in all these different parts of the world. You know, you might be based in Glasgow, but you're serving worldwide.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Like some simple tweaks.

Speaker A: And um, with this specific series of the Broadtech podcast, we've been very intentional to focus on women leaders in the tech space in Scotland and who's building cool products and just people we can showcase that can inspire other women. So, um, you know, with that in mind, if you were to give advice to another one, maybe another teacher that's thinking about it right now to go and start their own company, what advice would you have for them?

Speaker C: Start.

Speaker A: Do it.

Speaker C: Do it. Pull a chair up at the table. Your voice matters. Do it.

Speaker A: I think that that is sort of going from the idea to execution, you know, because a lot of people have great business ideas but only a fraction of them actually do it, you know, So I think that's a really, it is an inspirational message to say, give it a go. Just what's, what's the worst that could happen?

Speaker C: Yeah. And I guess as well, when you do start.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: Make sure that someone wants to pay for your product.

Speaker A: Yes. Do the market validation.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Um, make sure that you've got customers that want to buy your product and if they don't understand, why not.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's very important because a lot of people have the great ideas, they focus on it themselves. They go to market thinking, this is such a great idea, but without the actual market validation, it can just fall flat. So that's great advice as well, Katie. Thank you so much. So, fellow founders, perhaps, obviously that's great advice for if we were inspiring other women to get into business just to have that confidence to jump in the deep end. But we also have a great audience of early stage founders that might be earlier in the journey than you. You're further along and looking at quite a lot of different things in their business. So is there anything that you want to tell them or is there anything they should know now? If they're early on, just be prepared for. Down the line that you've learned.

Speaker C: I think. Yeah, be prepared for. I think as you start out a business, at the start, it's quite isolating. So have a support system there. Is it family, is it friends, is it members of the ecosystem? Um, almost like have a little cheerleader there. So that if there's days that you're like, oh, gosh, what have I done? I've moved from my job into, like, entrepreneurship, and it's hard. Have that buffer, that person that can pick you up and be like, you've got it, keep going.

Speaker A: So, Katie, what about where you were when you started Teacher Bot? You know, what was. Were you teaching full time and then you started it on the side and then how did you eventually decide to do it full time and quit your job teaching?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, so I've actually this picture in my phone. I'm sitting breastfeeding my little boy, who was like a couple of months at the time. And I had him here and I had my hand in the laptop and I was typing away. Um, I think my husband just took the picture because he was like, you're going to look back and remember this. Um, so that was the exact position. But yeah, so I was on mat leave with my second child. And previously I had applied for a lot of tech jobs. I always wanted to be a teacher. Um, and I would always continue to a teacher, but I thought maybe I could explore other avenues. Um, I was rejected so many times from different tech jobs.

Speaker A: Oh, really?

Speaker C: And my husband was like, do it yourself. Go and, yeah, create something yourself. And if you do want to apply for jobs in the future, then you can show them what you've built. So it wasn't my intention to fully build something and make it into a business. It was more so like if I then applied for a job, I'd be like, hey, look what I've built. And here it is. So that was my circumstances. So I built Teacher Bot. I then went back to teaching after building Teacher Bot. And I just realized that the problem that I was solving was so relevant. Um, and I vividly remember I was sitting at my desk. I wanted to make it home in time for tea with my kids that were very young at the time. And I was sitting at my desk and I was like frantically writing, um, my lesson plans. I had to forward plan for the months ahead. And there was a teacher standing at my door and she was asking me questions, but I was ignoring her because I had to get My work done or what? I thought I had to get my work done. But what I was doing there is I was ignoring that human connection. And it was at that point I was like, I need to go full time in this. I have to help teachers to reduce their workload and have more time for that human connection.

Speaker A: So that moment in particular was almost a driver to say, like, I don't want to be ignoring people and I want to just jump into this full time. So you just went home and were like, I'm quitting my job.

Speaker C: Not quite as easy as that. But I had a lot of conversations with my husband. Um, I'd lost two really, um, important people in my life, um, over the course of a year. And I was like, you only live once. Like, let's do it, let's do it. So, yeah, from there I went in, had some chats with, um, my boss at the time, who was super lovely and supportive and was like, yeah, go for it.

Speaker A: So in terms of running a tech company, taking all of this on, having the family wanting to scale globally, sounds like there could be quite a lot of pressure on you. How are you coping with that? Have you felt that, or are you just managing it in a way that's not becoming overwhelming? What's that been like for you, Katie?

Speaker C: I would say, yeah, for sure. You feel pressure. Um, and particularly in the beginning, um, I felt like I had to do it all. And then with the support of my mentors and family, they were like, focus on what you love to do. Like, what parts of the business do you love, what drives you, what motivates you, and focus time in on that, uh, and draw in support and expertise from other people to help in the areas you don't like so much. And I guess it's really great advice. Although people that are listening will be like, well, you kind of have to do it all. But if you can focus on the parts that you really love. Like, I really love product and, um, really love, like, the kind of marketing side of things, but then draw an expertise about the parts that you don't really like, then that helps to take the pressure off a little bit. Because I feel like if you enjoy what you're doing, then you don't feel as much pressure.

Speaker A: I totally resonate with that. Yeah, I feel like. Cause from my side, whenever I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, like, and running a business and get them overwhelmed, sometimes I'll think, how lucky am I to run a business? You know, like, try to change a bit of the mindset. So that it's. The pressure feels more exciting than overwhelming because it's like, wow, this is. I'm very lucky to be able to do this. And, you know, it's that kind of different mentality, which is easier said than done because we all know that once people get in the thick of it, it can be a whole other story. But I think that's, um, really great advice as well, Katie. Thank you so much.

Speaker C: Ah.

Speaker A: And, um, we always like to give a shout out to businesses worldwide. So the whole kind of ambition with us with this broadside podcast is to try to get us just out of Scotland and put a spotlight on Scotland and to be able to promote all the amazing things, you know, and amazing women founders that we have here that are building great things. So, um, is there another business elsewhere in the world that you would like to give a shout out to?

Speaker C: So how do we think about this last night? There is a website called Bedtime Stories, AI. Um, and it's founded or one of the co founders is Linus Ekenstan, so he's Swedish, but he lives in Barcelona. And it's a great resource, um, for helping a lot of different people to create stories for children or themselves and to make it really personalized. And it's so beautifully designed. So I would have a look at that.

Speaker A: Oh, nice. Thank you so much. And lastly, if you. You had one word to describe your founder journey, what would that be?

Speaker C: Incredible. That sounds a bit cheesy. No. Uh, but yeah, just. Oh, golly, just one word. Yeah, I've loved it.

Speaker A: Incredible. No, I think that's totally fair. Katie, you're doing great things and to. To come from obviously being a teacher, working in that space, seeing that problem going out, uh, and creating something to solve that problem is brilliant, you know, and I think that you should be massively proud of that. Scaling worldwide is a huge achievement. And, uh, yeah, we wish you all the very best. Like, thank you so much for coming on the Bra Tech podcast. We really appreciate your time.

Speaker C: Thank you so much, Jamie. And thanks for having me. And thank you.

Speaker A: And thank you to everyone for listening in. We really loved having Katie on the BroadTech Podcast. Stay tuned for more episodes coming soon. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you, Katie.

Speaker C: No bother.