Founder Story
The Spark
Where To Wee started with a frustration our founder, Blessing Fasina, knows all too well. Blessing moved to the UK from Nigeria in 2023 to study for his Master's degree — and quickly discovered that finding a public toilet when you're out is far harder than it should be.
Picture this: you're out in the cold, miles from home, and you desperately need the loo. You look around. Nothing. You check your phone. The results are outdated, closed, or paid facilities you can't access. Blessing found himself asking a corner shop owner if he could use their toilet. He said yes, thankfully, but the whole experience felt unnecessarily stressful.
And it kept happening. Again and again.
"Is It Just Me?"
We started asking people – friends, colleagues, anyone who'd listen. "Do you find it hard to find toilets when you're out?" Without exception, everyone had stories. The panic at a train station. The "customers only" rejection at a café. The 50p they didn't have at a paid facility.
But we wanted data, not just anecdotes. So we went to where honest conversations happen: Reddit.
In subreddits like r/AskUK, r/london, and r/uktravels, we found thread after thread of people sharing the exact same frustrations:
- "We all know the UK severely lacks public toilets"
- "Why are public toilets so hard to find in the UK?"
- "I'm visiting London – where can I actually find a toilet?"
This wasn't a niche complaint. It was a universal frustration that people had simply accepted as "just how it is." Even the BBC covered it – reporting on calls for greater access to public toilets across the country.
The Data That Changed Everything
As developers, we think in systems and data. So we did what any curious problem-solver would do: we researched the market. What we found was eye-opening:
Keyword research showed that "toilet near me" and closely related searches add up to over 1.5 million searches every single month in the UK – from people who need a toilet and can't find one. The Royal Society for Public Health has found there is just one public toilet for every 15,481 people in England.
Building the Solution
That's when the idea crystallised. What if there was a single, reliable place to find every public toilet in the UK? Not just the council-run ones, but the ones in shopping centres, supermarkets, train stations, parks – everywhere.
And more importantly, what if it was community-powered? Users adding toilets, rating cleanliness, confirming accessibility features, flagging closures in real-time.
Where To Wee was born.
We're not just building an app – we're building a movement. Because access to a toilet isn't a luxury. It's a basic human need. And in 2026, no one should have to panic trying to find one.
