Built by a Teacher
Created by Maggie, who taught across 7 countries and lived the burnout. Every feature exists because a real teacher needed it.
TeamTeacher wasn't created by tech people who thought teachers might need AI. It was created by Maggie, a teacher who taught across 7 countries, lived through the burnout, and knew exactly what was broken about teacher tools.
The Teacher Behind TeamTeacher
Maggie's Teaching Journey
7 Countries. 15 Years. Every Challenge You've Faced.
Maggie taught:
- International schools across 3 continents
- Public and private school settings
- Elementary through high school
- IB, Common Core, and national curricula
- Students from 40+ countries
- Resourced schools and under-resourced schools
She experienced:
- 60-hour work weeks as the norm
- Endless searches for "that lesson I made last year"
- Copy-pasting standards into AI tools over and over
- Trying to align ChatGPT's responses with IB criteria
- Losing formatting when copying AI content
- Recreating materials she knew she'd made before
Why She Built TeamTeacher
The Burnout Was Real
Teaching internationally meant:
- Creating materials from scratch for unfamiliar curricula
- No department colleagues to share resources with
- Different educational frameworks every few years
- Constant time zone challenges for professional development
- Limited institutional support or resources
Maggie left teaching not because she stopped loving students, but because the job became unsustainable.
The "What If?" Moment
"What if AI tools actually understood curriculum frameworks?" "What if formatting just worked when you copied content?" "What if you could find everything you'd ever created?" "What if AI felt like a colleague, not a chatbot?"
Instead of wondering, Maggie built it.
Teacher-First Design Principles
1. Respect Teachers' Time
Every feature exists to save time, not create new work.
❌ What we don't do:
- Require extensive setup or configuration
- Add "features" that create more administrative burden
- Prioritize metrics that don't serve teaching
- Build tools that look impressive but aren't practical
✅ What we do:
- One-click actions where possible
- Sane defaults that work for most teachers
- Features that eliminate repetitive tasks
- Tools that integrate with existing workflows
2. Understand Curriculum Reality
Generic AI doesn't know what teachers actually teach.
Because Maggie taught IB, Common Core, and state standards, TeamTeacher includes:
- Pre-loaded curriculum frameworks
- Agents trained on specific standards
- Terminology teachers actually use
- Assessment structures that match real requirements
We don't make you explain your curriculum to AI every single time.
3. Preserve What Works
Teachers have workflows that work - don't break them.
TeamTeacher integrates with:
- Google Drive (where your files already are)
- Google Docs (where you actually write)
- Existing folder structures (that make sense to you)
- Copy-paste workflows (because they're universal)
We don't force you into a new, "better" system. We make your existing system better.
4. Build Features Teachers Actually Need
Every feature in TeamTeacher exists because Maggie or alpha testers needed it.
Examples:
Curriculum Knowledge Bases
- Teacher need: "I'm tired of copy-pasting IB criterion descriptors into ChatGPT"
- TeamTeacher solution: Pre-loaded, searchable curriculum frameworks
Document Formatting
- Teacher need: "When I copy ChatGPT tables into Google Docs, they fall apart"
- TeamTeacher solution: Rich text editor that preserves formatting on copy
Semantic Search
- Teacher need: "I can't remember what I named that photosynthesis lab from last year"
- TeamTeacher solution: AI search that understands meaning, not just filenames
Phone-a-Friend
- Teacher need: "I need curriculum expertise AND content expertise in one response"
- TeamTeacher solution: Agents that collaborate automatically
The Alpha Testing Process
Real Teachers, Real Feedback
TeamTeacher's alpha test included:
- 50+ teachers across 12 countries
- Elementary, middle, and high school educators
- IB, AP, state standards, and international curricula
- Science, math, humanities, and languages teachers
- Experienced educators and first-year teachers
What They Said
On Formatting:
"The copy-paste formatting is the feature that makes everything else worth it. I waste so much time reformatting ChatGPT output - this just works." — Sarah, High School Science Teacher, Texas
On Curriculum Awareness:
"Having Minerva just know IB criteria means I actually use it. With ChatGPT, I'd spend 10 minutes setting context before getting any useful output." — James, MYP Coordinator, International School
On Search:
"I found a lesson I created 8 months ago by searching 'hands-on activity for teaching density'. I couldn't remember what I named it or which folder it was in. TeamTeacher just found it." — Lisa, Middle School Science Teacher, Minnesota
On Time Savings:
"I'm getting my evenings back. Not all of them, but more than before. That matters." — David, Elementary Teacher, California
Features Alpha Testers Requested
Many of TeamTeacher's features came directly from alpha tester feedback:
- Conversation forking (requested by 8 teachers)
- Google Drive import (most requested feature)
- Shared notes across conversations (suggested by 5 teachers)
- Custom agents for school-specific needs (requested by 12 teachers)
- Folder organization for documents (unanimous request)
We Prioritize Teachers' Needs
Product Decisions
When deciding what to build next, we ask:
- Does this save teachers time?
- Does this reduce frustration?
- Does this integrate with how teachers actually work?
- Would Maggie have used this when she was teaching?
If the answer to any question is "no," we don't build it.
Pricing That Makes Sense
We know teacher salaries. TeamTeacher pricing reflects that:
- Free tier for trying the platform
- Affordable paid tier at teacher-budget prices
- School/district pricing for institutional adoption
- No surprise charges or hidden fees
We're not maximizing revenue per user. We're maximizing teachers who can actually use this tool.
Support That Understands
When you contact support:
- You talk to people who understand teaching
- No need to explain why you need X feature "right before grades are due"
- We get that "sometime next week" means "I need this for tomorrow's class"
- Empathy for the teacher experience, not just the technical problem
Join a Community Built by Teachers, For Teachers
TeamTeacher continues to evolve based on teacher input:
- Monthly teacher feedback sessions
- Feature requests voted on by the community
- Beta testing for new capabilities
- Teacher advisory board guiding product direction
This isn't a tech company building for education. This is a teacher who built the tool she needed, sharing it with other teachers who need it too.
Because every hour you save is an hour you get back.