The short version
At 17 I was running events with real money on the line: my own. Ticket sales, venue deposits, suppliers to pay. Then I made a tax mistake that no classroom had prepared me for, and I paid for it in the most educational way possible.
That mistake is why The Business School exists. Business lessons taught me definitions. Running a business taught me consequences. The gap between those two is exactly what I build for.
What The Business School is
The Business School is a live classroom business simulation. Student teams run rival firms in the same market during one lesson: they set prices, hire, take loans, file VAT, face crises and negotiate deals, and every decision has a visible consequence on their firm. Teachers run it from one screen, students join with a PIN, and nothing is installed. Decisions are mapped to the UK exam specifications teachers actually teach.
Around the simulation we publish a growing library of free teaching resources: complete packs with answers, revision pages and classroom games for Business and Economics. The free library stays free. Premium products fund it.
Why it exists
Most business teaching has to happen on paper, and paper cannot answer back. A simulation can. When a student underprices a vehicle and watches their cash run out, they have learned something a definition could never teach them. We build so that the first real consequence a young person meets is a safe one, inside a lesson, not an expensive one at 17 with their own money.
Who is behind it
A small company, and it says so rather than pretending otherwise. What follows is everyone with a formal role.
Sakari Laajoki, founder
Writes the teaching material, runs the company, answers the support email himself.
Olli-Pekka Laajoki, board
Ten years teaching in Finnish vocational education. The reason every pack is read by someone who has stood in front of a class at eight in the morning.
Appifest, Sydney
The simulation is built and maintained by Appifest, a development studio in Sydney, Australia, engaged since March 2026 and working to a signed agreement with recorded milestones. The software side does not rest on one person either.
Every line of it belongs to TBS Education Ltd Oy. There is a separate intellectual property assignment covering the source code, the database, the game logic and the documentation. That matters to a school more than the name does: it means the thing you licence does not disappear if a contractor moves on.
If you email us
Support is answered within 24 hours, and by a person who knows the material rather than a ticket queue. Every paid pack has a free sample so you can judge the format and the depth before you pay. If you are charged twice, cannot access the files, or a pack is faulty or not as described, say so and we put it right. The refund policy.
The company
TBS Education Ltd Oy is a Finnish company, registered company number 3614159-3, registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office under ICO registration ZC133810. Built in Finland, used in UK classrooms.
Questions, ideas or a pilot enquiry: contact us. Teachers can also find us in the free teacher group, where new resources land first.