School of Everything was founded by five friends: Peter Brownell, Andy Gibson, Mary Harrington, Dougald Hine and Paul Miller. They met as editors of a weekly email newsletter called Pick Me Up that was written by its readers and found they had a shared interest in changing the way that learning was organised. With the help of the Young Foundation they starting working together and built the first version of the site and in September 2007 they were chosen as one of the most promising start-ups in Europe for the Seedcamp competition.

In February 2008 they announced that they had won the backing of three angel investors and Channel 4 Education to develop the project further. Since then, Russell Blakeborough, Sangeet Gyawali and Hugo Rumens have joined the team.