How it came to be.

Before preparing for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, I studied in the way many people do: I read and reread my notes, trusting familiarity to mean I understood the material.

But the SQE was different. The volume of content was enormous, and the standard was demanding. I quickly realised that rereading was not going to be enough. I needed to test whether I could actually recall and explain the law without looking at it.

That led me to active recall. I began putting the material away, reconstructing what I knew, and using the gaps in my answers to decide what to study next. I achieved a strong result in SQE1, but the process itself was fragmented and manual.

I was surprised that a tool built around this way of learning did not already exist. So, while preparing for the exam, I started building the one I wished I had: something that could turn dense material into structured recall practice, assess what I could genuinely explain, expose weak points and bring them back at the right time.

At first, it was a hobby and a passion project. I was building it for myself, not setting out to create a company. Then I showed it to friends, and they wanted to use it too. I realised that the problem I was solving was not unique to law.

That private study tool became Paper Tiger. It is starting with legal education because that is the problem I know firsthand, but the underlying idea is broader: stop rereading, start recalling, and find out what you actually know before it matters.