T.P.W. Websites started in Timothy Weibel’s house.
Now the ed-tech firm has more than 17 employees and a new headquarters in the city of Tonawanda, in a newly renovated 9,000-square-foot facility on Main Street that used to be a First Niagara branch.
It’s all to accommodate the growth ahead for T.P.W.’s two distinct brands, which include:
SuperTeacherWorksheets.com: Weibel’s initial product is a subscription-based service that offers printable PDFs for K-5 teachers.
The business has grown to more than 100,000 customers who pay for worksheets that are supported by a T.P.W. team of educators, graphic designers and software developers.
iKnowIt.com: A software-as-a-service platform with interactive math lessons for K-5 students.
In a world that includes major corporate competitors and other ancillary software companies, iKnowIt quickly found a niche by focusing on the quality of its lessons and introducing the product to its existing customer base.
“It’s been extremely well-received by teachers,” Weibel said. “It’s much more graphical and kid-friendly than what’s out there. It has a nicer interface that makes it appealing to students when they answer a math question.”
IKnowIt is entering an expansive market that the T.P.W. team is just starting to tackle, but there’s no doubt the team sees huge opportunity ahead. The new headquarters includes space for up to 30 employees. This summer, T.P.W. added Gregg Gallson, formerly a senior consulting manager at Amherst-based accounting firm Chiampou Travis Besaw & Kershner, as director of operations and finance.
“I’m helping Tim professionalize and organize this business and build a foundation to grow into the future,” Gallson said.
More hiring is expected this year and into 2022.
“We want to continue adding to our team of people – and once people get here they stick around,” Gallson said. “Tim’s vision is to make this one of the best places to work in Western New York.”
While the company will remain self-funded for now, that doesn’t mean its ambitions are dim. The worksheets product still has plenty of untapped potential, Weibel said, and the plan is to build iKnowIt curriculum that covers math and ELA from kindergarten to 12th grade.
“Worksheets is huge because elementary school classes have to have paper,” he said. “IKnowIt is the perfect complement because it tackles the same market from the digital angle. We’ve had thousands of teachers signing up for trials, and a lot of them are sticking with us.”
